Can't Undress Your Heart
by Illusive Writings
Summary: Castle Winter Hiatus 2014 Ficathon Entry. Richard Castle is an accomplished novelist. But he's also a legendary rock star. What he thought was going to be just another world tour became the beginning of a voyage that changed his life forever. All it took was a newcomer band and its energetic, free spirited, homicide detective frontwoman. Rating may be subject to a change.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 **

It was just another tour, just like the countless others he had done in the past.

And he had been doing it for the last twenty years; first only locally, then nationally and when the fame overcame him, all around the world. But that had happened only years after he had started his musical career.

Ah, being Richard Castle, the frontman and songwriter for two of the most important hard rock and heavy metal bands of his age, and mystery writer in his spare time, had its perks, but also its demands. One of them was touring.

And having just crossed the line of forty years old, being on the road, away from home for so long, had started taking its toll on him. Not that he didn't enjoy it anymore, after all, the crowds cheering and singing and moshing while they were on stage was like oxygen to him, and come hell or high water he loved being among his fans, signing CDs and taking pictures with them. He was known among the fans for his calm and amicable aptitude with the people that asked him to sign their copy of the new album they had just released or for a photo together. If he could, he'd meet every single fan that waited outside venues for them, sometimes daring North Pole like temperatures or scalding hot sun.

He wasn't exactly fond of press duties though, except when the non-professional came in and asked the funniest fangirling questions. That was the only side of press duty he liked; with time and expansion of the Internet, tons of websites run by fans, and wannabe professional journalists became popular, some of them had valid elements and he preferred those kind of interviews. Roundtables were boring, press conferences were dull. One on one interview with a fan? Fun as hell, because they knew everything and outside the standard questions they asked at times, or questions he could be a bit of a jerk at answering. He loved to make them laugh.

He also wasn't a fan of waiting at airports, running around with his baggage wasn't exactly his preferred activity, but he still liked going on tour.

And most importantly he wasn't fond of leaving his daughter home alone with his mother for half of the spring and the whole summer, that's all.

His manager had just called to tell him not to take any commitments from April to October. That could only mean one thing: national tour in late spring and summer festival tour in Europe. Maybe a couple of gigs in Asia and Australia too, if they could stick them somewhere in time.

He knew the gig, after so many years. He had also learned to dread that call, sometimes, because you never know if it's a call for a tour of the label pursuing for a new release.

But it had been almost a year since the last tour, they had released an album and only made a short national one because Jeff, the drummer, had a newborn to take care of and a not so happy wife to let him go. Being on the road again all together would be nice, after all; there hadn't been lots of chances to meet up with the band after that one short tour, many months before, and even the other band, his main project, was now on hiatus for various reasons. They couldn't even just call each other and meet for a drink, he was the only one that lived in New York. The rest of the band lived in Los Angeles except for Damian, bassist and long time best friend, that lived in Long Island.

He was the only native New Yorker, that was the price to pay for forming a band while in college. People came and went from all the states, they often preferred to go back home after that.

Now that the band was booked, even if it was only January, it was only a matter of leaving the economical and logistic aspects to his manager, then sign the contract, along with the supporting act. They weren't excessively demanding, not like in the early days when the game had turned them punch drunk idiots that followed M tley Crue's teachings about being a rock star to the letter. There had been days of destroyed hotel rooms, expensive champagne poured in the toilet for the heck of it, drunkenly disorder that left their manager to fight with the local police. Maybe bribe them too.

Nah, those days were long gone. Now they only required some place quiet to chill before and after the gig, some beverages, WiFi coverage and a vegetarian meal for Jim. Often promoters were marveled by meager requests, and he kind of like it that way.

He was trying to raise Alexis so she wouldn't turn into a spoiled brat like many rock star kids were. Her mother was already a bad example on her own, he didn't need to add more fuel to that.

As he entered the loft, back from a trip to the grocery store round the corner, he was greeted by the usual silence that reigned sovereign when his daughter was home studying. He rarely heard much more than the pages of her school books as she turned them.

So much for being the daughter of a rock star. Alexis Castle was a quiet kid, not much different from what he had been at her age, though less angry and frustrated than him.

Same love for music though, that ran through their veins with their blood. He wasn't a fan of Taylor Swift like she was, but she loved Patti Smith just as much, that was enough for him.

He walked upstairs to her room: the door was opened, Alexis had her nose stuck to a book as usual.

"Hey Pumpkin, how are you doing?" he asked, moving to stand behind her.

"Fine. Calculus is killing me again but fine. You got everything for dinner?" She didn't even move her eyes from the book.

"Yeah. Listen, I got a call while I was out. Gina is working to get me on tour with Rising Storm for the summer."

That distracted her from the numbers and letters on the page. "From spring to when?"

Oh, she knew the gig too, after so long. He nodded. "Yep. Probably national tour in the spring and summer festivals and some sparse gigs in Europe. Are you OK with that?"

"You're joking right? You out of the way while I have finals? Total paradise!"

He ruffled her hair. "You sure? Gram's going to go over the top while I'm away."

"Still better than you writing vocal lines in the middle of the night. Dad, really, I'll be just fine. I'm the responsible one in the family after all."

"Weird as it sounds, you are. Do you want to go to LA after school is over?"

She shook her head. "I have to hold the fort while you're having fun at Waken and Summerbreeze."

"Not sure about Waken, maybe Metal Camp. Gina is still working on the details, she'll let me know in a while."

"Do you know who you're touring with?"

"That's part of the details I don't know yet. I'll tell you when I learn it."

Alexis chuckled. "I bet Blabbermouth will publish it before Gina tells you guys."

"Right, so you'll tell me when you read it online, I get it. Go back to your homework, I'll start dinner."

Same old story after all. Even his sixteen year old daughter knew how it worked. Write an album, publish it, go on tour, rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Still better than the book tours his publicist kept booking for him even if he hated them. Mystery novels readers tended to be a boring crowd, compared to a bunch of metalheads. He loved writing as much as he loved singing on stage, but calm and quiet lines of people asking for autographs weren't his type.

Headbanging, screaming moshing dudes and gals singing every line of every song? Best feeling ever.

Meanwhile, sitting at a cluttered desk of the Homicide Division of the 12th Precinct of New York City, a young detective worked on the new case that had dropped the day before. A pony express had been murdered and his bag stolen. Weird cases are her favorite. She was running through the guy's financials when her desk phone rang.

"Detective Beckett," she answered, mechanically, expecting someone from the coroner's office.

"Kate Beckett?" asked an unknown female voice. "The singer of Undercover Job?"

Oh. Someone was calling her for her band. "Yes, this is she. How did you get this number?"

"I have friends," said the voice. She sounded annoyed by the question. "I'm Gina Cowell, manager of Rising Storm and The Gallows. I'm organizing a spring and summer tour for Rising Storm and a colleague recommended your band as a supporting act. I'm not sure though, you've only released a self-produced album that got you signed with our label, you don't sound too experienced," she explained. "Certainly not enough for such a long tour."

Hearing the names of the bands she represented, she nearly had a heart attack. "We're not kids, Miss Caldwell. We can handle it."

"Have you ever toured for so long? I'm talking of a period of time that extends from late April to mid October."

"No, never."

"Do you think you can handle the stress?"

It sounded like an interrogation. Beckett had heard of Gina Cowell, the top manager of the record label they had just signed with. She worked only with the best bands, the bigger ones, the fact that she was calling her to discuss a probable tour with Rising Storm, one of the top hard rock bands of the United States made her slightly uncomfortable. She shifted a little bit on her seat before she spoke again.

"I'm a cop, I eat stress for breakfast," the reply sounded harsher than how she meant it to be.

"I'm talking about long hours on the road, five concerts a week and little to no privacy."

"Sounds like the academy. Miss Cowell, if you're worried we might give up on you in the middle of the tour, you're badly mistaken. I might be a woman but I work in a field that's historically considered as a man's job. I'm tough. I can handle it. And my guys too."

The guys were the other members of the band, second guitarist, bassist and the drummer, herbeloved cousin Jay. All men, she was the only woman. Not a rare sight but still not that common, at least in hard rock. There were bands in Europe that had female singers and front women since the nineties, but they were mostly symphonic or gothic metal bands. Totally a different genre. Hard rock, it was more of a man's world, like being a cop. She was used to being surrounded by guys, and being the only girl didn't bother her. She had learned how to keep them in check and be respected in both environments. No way she'd get trampled by a bitchy, spoiled manager.

After a long pause of silence, the manager spoke again. "I'll keep that in mind. Good evening, Detective Beckett."

She hung up and for a moment she sat there, immobile, as if frozen in place. Was that actually happening or was she dreaming? It did feel like the precursor of a burnout, it was so unreal... Gina Caldwell was really taking an emergent band into consideration for the supporting act of Rising Storm? It didn't make sense. Or did it?

Lost in her thoughts, Beckett also lost track of time. She kept replaying the phone call in her head, mentally smacking herself for the way she had handled it.

Captain Montgomery pulled her back from her trance like state. "Is everything alright?"

Luckily, he knew about her hobby, his son was kind of a fan and he had come to more than a few concerts in the past (with half of the precinct) so she wasn't afraid to speak about it.

"Sir, if I didn't blow all my chances by being a total bitch with the label's top manager, do you think I can ask for a leave of absence from April to October?"

* * *

><p><em>Word Count: 2063<em>

_Thanks to Alex for the beta reading and the support and to the amazing alyssinmymind for the cover art (that I can't upload because the site is being a little bit bitchy today, gonna try later). Also, I'm going to make a post on Tumblr to link all the songs that I'm gonna put in here, because there are two real musicians behind this AU version of Castle and Beckett. Your job to find who they are. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

He was chilling in the living room, sprawled on the couch with a notepad and pen in hand, writing some ideas for new songs, when the thick silence of the loft was broken by his daughter's earsplitting shrill from upstairs. Next came the loud thumps of her steps as she ran to the staircase and down to the first floor, still yelling like a maniac.

"Daddaddaddaddaddaddad... They announced the tour!"

He sighed. Just as predicted, the press was way ahead of the directly involved parties. Gina was going to pay for it; he had signed his contract two days before but the negotiations with the support band were still ongoing so they weren't able to give him a name or a detailed list of all the dates. Apparently, his manager has thought it would be nice to tell millions of people before him. And the rest of the group.

What if she had booked another of those emergent bands that needed to get themselves known to a wider public, and just because they were on tour with Rising Storm they thought they could go around playing mediocre concerts and brag about it? He hated that kind of attitude. He was all in for promoting new bands. Good, working bands. Bands that put effort in what they did.

But his daughter's excitement made him curious.

"Who are we sharing the stage with?"

"Undercover Job."

He frowned. "Never heard of them," he replied, immediately regretting his words as he saw Alexis' displeasure.

"Dad, they're like the best band in New York! They came out last year with their first album, it's absolutely awesome! How can you not know of them?"

He put down the paper and took his laptop, which was resting on the coffee table, then booted it. "I guess you do though, considering how excited you are."

She nodded. "I went to one of their concerts last year, just after they put out the album. They are awesome, Kate Beckett's voice is... Can't even describe it."

He looked up at her, slightly confused. "Kate Beckett? As in they have a female singer? What the hell is it, some gothic metal band like Jim's girlfriend's?"

"Nope. Just plain, old school hard rock, sort of like a modern version of The Runaways. And you know what? She's a cop."

He froze with his fingers on the keyboard. "You've got to be shitting me."

"Never in my life. And you owe me a dollar. Go and look it up. They even made a video in the precinct where she works."

"What the hell..." He gasped when he saw the promotional gallery on their official website. She was beyond gorgeous.

"The press has nicknamed her the Joan Jett With The Badge. They say she's a tough one, youngest women to ever make Detective in the NYPD," Alexis explained. She clearly knew a lot about the band, it meant she liked them a lot.

"How can she make it work? I mean, being a cop, it's a hard job, how the hell can they..."

"The band isn't full time. Not yet I think. They all have a job on their own, not only her. They do manage to play some gigs around the Tri State area though."

He nodded, speeding down the official biography of the band. It was a project born roughly ten years before, from Kate and Jay Beckett, two cousins with a passion for hard rock. While they pursued their daytime careers - Kate was a cop, Jay was a microbiologist - they had also worked together on the band since they were in high school. They were the heart of Undercover Job, the only stable members. Lead guitarist and bassist had changed many times during the years, the line up became more stable only in the past couple of years. Their discography wasn't vast, other than the first homonymous album there were a couple of EPs and a single.

"Right. This is going to be interesting. I suppose you have everything they ever released." She nodded. "Can I borrow them?"

Alexis kissed his cheek and sprinted upstairs in her bedroom, apparently more than happy to oblige.

Yes, this was going to be really interesting, he thought, scrolling through the promotional gallery again to a photo of Kate Beckett in high heels, leather pants and jacket and a sleek black Les Paul guitar strapped around her shoulders. Girls with guitars were one of his greatest weaknesses.

Really interesting.

At the 12th Precinct, the news had spread fast. Everyone, from holding to Robbery, knew about it. And they were all happy for her. The two detectives that worked on her team, Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito; fans extraordinaire, had also prepared a huge banner they had hung in the break room that said _Go And Rock The World Beckett. _The welcoming the whole bullpen reserved for her when she walked out of the elevator was deafening.

Like a rock concert.

Detective Kate Beckett rarely found herself overwhelmed by the events in her life, but the morning after the summer world tour was announced was one of those events. She loved her job as a detective, she was very successful at it, with a very high rate of closed cases, but she and her cousin Jay had worked so hard to turn their dream of having a rock band in reality that she could not help but favor that dream to her day job.

Being a cop paid the rent and the bills, gave her a sense of purpose. The band gave her a thrill nothing else could, not even chasing down a suspect and catching him did the same.

Almost shy, she walked to her desk where Captain Montgomery, Esposito and Ryan waited for her. "So I guess that leave of absence is really needed," stated the Captain.

"Definitely. We're leaving for LA on the last week of April, are you sure I can go?"

He nodded. "Of course. It's not like the division will crumble if you're not here. I'm sure your colleagues will hold the fort just fine." He handed her a small stack of paper. "I'll need them filled and signed by the end of the day. The moment I sign them your leave will be approved and you'll be able to live your dream for six months. Enjoy them as much as you can."

"Captain I'm not leaving tomorrow. It's still in February, there's no need to say goodbye already."

"Beckett, you're going away for six months in a world tour," said Ryan. "And we won't be able to follow you. We'll miss you, and we're just trying to get used to the idea."

No matter how he tried to look tough, Ryan was a big softie, so was Esposito but he hid it better. She was sure they'd call her every day, to check on her. Her big, cute bodyguards.

"What happens now?" asked Esposito.

She shrugged. "Nothing much. We've signed the contract, with our requests and everything. We're going to do some more rehearsals, choose a set list and then go to LA, the US tour starts there. That's it," she explained.

"What about the other band?"

"They're a side project of the singer and guitarist of The Gallows, one of the most important metal bands these days. They have a great following all around the world. That's all."

"Want me to run a background check on them?" asked the Captain.

She shook her head. "You'd find some minor charges for disorderly conduct and stuff like that. Nothing that I don't already know. Come on, it's time to get to work. People won't stop killing each other because I'll go on a world tour with one of my favorite bands."

To say that he was impressed was an understatement. Alexis had given him all material she had and he had promptly listened to them. And watched some videos on YouTube. There were vast margins of improvement, but they had talent and abilities. And Alexis was right, her voice was amazing.

The video his daughter had talked about, the one shot in the precinct where she worked was interesting. It wasn't a great video, they had a strict budget probably, but it looked good enough. And the song was great and catchy. No wonder Alexis liked them so much, they were right in the range of soft enough that teenage girls could like them but with that gritty and heavier time that even hardcore metalheads could appreciate them.

Unfortunately there weren't videos of them live, at least not in a decent quality so he could evaluate their performance on stage. But there were other methods to fill that void. A short series of phone calls and one hour later he had the address of their rehearsal space in Queens, along with the next time they were supposed to go there to rehearse.

Under normal circumstances he would never do something like that. Interrupting the sacred time devoted to rehearsal was despicable to say the least, he hated when he and the guys of any of his bands were holed in the studio, writing or practicing new songs, and someone interrupted then. Only close family had a free pass, like wives and children, and only for serious matters, the rest would be forever shamed and picked on.

But curiosity and opportunity pushed him to catch the subway to Brooklyn and go to their place at the time they were expected to come and play for some hours.

From the outside, the place didn't look to bad, a bit run down but the whole block looked old and a little worn out after all. Above the door there was the sign of a music school, one of those that were meant to keep kids away from the streets and guide them towards a better life by channeling their attention to something constructive. It seemed fit, considering Kate Beckett's job. At that hour, a little bit after 8 PM, the school was closed, but apparently they had access to its rehearsal room.

The door was open and he walked into a narrow corridor. All lights were out, but he could see some light coming from the staircase that led to the basement. Someone was tuning a guitar down there, and he could hear another person talking. Moving in that direction, he tried to make less noise he could. If he could, he'd prefer not interrupt them, better, need prefer not to be seen at all. He just wanted to listen for a while.

He had just set foot on the last step when the drummer hit a cowbell and the band followed him.

Not wanting to bother them, he walked towards the rehearsal room but didn't enter. He land against the wall and he was more than happy to stay there and listen.

Oh, they were good. Really good. Although the acoustics wasn't the best, not fully sound-proof and the cramped space smothered the sound, he knew talent when he heard it. The place wasn't up to his weathered rock star needs, regarding acoustics and luxury, but it brought him back to his time in college when Rising Storm was only an idea hidden in the mind of five frustrated college students that preferred beating the crap out of a drum or break a guitar string than have a nervous breakdown. At that time The Gallows didn't even exist, that band came later when he and Damian had found out they needed something heavier than hard Rock, and soon enough they had become the next big thing in heavy metal after Metallica, to the point where Rising Storm was a side project and not the main focus. Both bands had started moving their first steps in rehearsal places like that though, rented by the hour, fighting to fit everyone's needs to find time to play.

That was also the kind of place where his first novel was conceived, on notes in the back of the lyrics he wrote. Derrick Storm, his most famous and successful character, saw the light on the back of music sheet of one of The Gallows' most famous songs. He still had it, carefully conserved in the first copy printed of Deadly Storm.

He still remembered the not so amused look on his mother's face when she had heard the title. When she had asked him what he found so fascinating about storms, he had replied that they were cool. That was the lowest point he'd ever hit in his wordsmith career, both as a lyricist and novelist.

The trip down memory lane was interrupted when he heard the initial guitar riff of one of Rising Storm's songs. He decided it was time to show himself.

"Hey, I want the royalties for that!" he shouted above the amplified instrument, finally going inside.

The looks on their faces were priceless. From stunned to barely containing the fangirling, they were stuck on the spot, like they were glued to the floor. The exact reaction he wanted.

"I don't remember hitting my head to the point I'd get hallucinations today," murmured the singer. By her attire she had come straight from work, her badge was clipped to the guitar strap, as if she wanted to make sure she wouldn't forget it.

"What are you doing here?" asked the guy who Castle thought was Jay, as he sat behind the drums, sticks in hand.

"Welcoming you in the madhouse of world touring. You know I live in the City, don't you?" They nodded. "Also, my daughter was kind enough to lend me her copy of your album, I thought it would be kind of me to give it back with your autographs."

They didn't move. They looked like they thought they were on the middle of an evil, well orchestrated prank. Just like his fans when they finally understood they had been talking to him for hours outside the venues, as he hid behind a simple pair of sunglasses.

He so loved pulling pranks on his fans...

* * *

><p><em>Chapter word count: 2350 Total count: 7098<em>


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

April came faster than they thought. The sudden and unexpected visit they received from Richard Castle that night in February to give them a welcome in their world shocked them enough so they actually started preparing a bit more intensely, rehearsing five times a week and going through different setlists until they decided which one they wanted to use. According to the contract they had signed, they had forty-five minutes of stage time, intro and outro included if they had one. They needed to pick the songs and their order carefully so they could exploit that time as much as they could.

This tour was their chance. Not many underground bands were given this opportunity, most of all because they weren't that young. Yes, the band was born in the mid-nineties, they had achieved quite some popularity in New York and around the city because they had being playing for years all around New England, but all the band members were now in their mid thirties. Kate was the youngest, but she was already 31, going on 32, way older than the usual age of emergent bands. Most of those old bands weren't given their chance, not at that age at least.

They'd better not blow it, if they wanted to get enough money to produce the next album.

The day they left, headed to Los Angeles, tension was sparkling through. They had tried to prepare themselves, telling each other that everything was going to be alright, that the crew had already been sent their gear and had received it and nothing was going bad. And yet, they were as tense as Kate's guitar strings, ready to snap if bent too much or picked too harshly during a solo.

Castle couldn't help but notice it by the way they sat at the airport, waiting for their flight to be called. There were other people with them, family and friends probably, gathered around in a small group, quietly chatting while the actual members of the band were all sitting tight in a tensed silence.

Silently, he walked closer to them carrying his baggage with him. Alexis and his mother, Martha, followed him, happily chatting behind his back. They sounded too happy to have him out of the way for so long, he didn't like it that much.

"Mother, please, will you promise me you won't wreck the house while I'm away? It's the only one we have!" he pleaded.

"Oh Richard, don't be ridiculous, we have the house in the Hamptons!"

"Well, don't wreck that one either. Alexis, you're in charge while I'm away."

"Emergency credit card is still in the same place?" she asked.

He nodded in reply. "Yes it is. And I haven't changed the safe combination too. Don't worry, you're covered with that."

In that moment a couple of men approached them. "Richard Castle?" asked the younger one.

He turned towards them. "Yes?"

"Detective Kevin Ryan and Detective Javier Esposito, Beckett's colleagues. We're a team."

There was a hint of hostility in his voice, their posture and looks. It felt like they were going to drag him to the nearest dark corner and beat the crap out of them. Not that it had never happened, but not in the past ten years. He was happy that way.

"Oh yes, she mentioned you some weeks ago when I went to see them in their rehearsal space. Nice to meet you." He extended his hand towards them but they both remained immobile.

"Yeah well... what we learned about you isn't so nice," stated Esposito, folding his arms across his chest.

"If you mean my rap sheet you should know I haven't done anything illegal in more than ten years."

"Oh of course we saw that but... seriously, stealing a police horse and running around naked on it? I wish I never saw those pictures!"

Then they both burst out laughing. A full fledged hysterical laughter that made them look like Archimedes from The Sword In The Stone, when Merlin tries to show Arthur the scale model of an airplane and fails miserably.

Realizing they had just pulled a prank on him, Castle laughed too. "There are pictures of that?"

Esposito nodded. "Oh yes! Nothing graphic though," replied Ryan. "By the way, nice to meet you, really."

They shook hands. "So you're Kate's colleagues. Nice to see you being so supportive."

"Her parents drove her here but they had to go back to the city for work. Both lawyers, they have a big case coming and couldn't stay. We offered to chaperone her," said Ryan.

"And we really wanted to meet you in person. The day after you went to see them she came to work walking on sunshine, really. She's a big fan, and not only of your music," added Esposito.

Ryan nodded. "Yeah, she loves your books too! We had a case about a year and half ago and she kept telling us it reminded her about one of your books. Turns out we solved it because the murdered followed it pretty closely but got some details wrong."

"Oh man you could have called me! I could have helped!"

"With what?" interjected Alexis. "With your irrational fangirling about cops and detectives and stuff? Nah, you would have driven them mad. You're a better person when you act as a musician. By the way, I'm Alexis, his daughter. And this is my grandmother Martha."

As his family and Beckett's colleagues exchanged pleasantries, he spotted the detective talking to another woman, slightly shorter than her. They looked pretty close but the moment she herself spotted him, she waved at him to move closer.

"Nice to see you're here too," she started. "This is Lanie Parish, medical examiner and best friend."

"Not a groupie? Nice to meet you Lanie, Richard Castle at your service."

"At my service uh? Well, start with finishing your next book, I've been waiting for ages!"

He smiled. "Well, I've been kind of busy for a while, I'll try to push some words out while we're traveling then."

"Good. You watch over him girl, I want that book out sooner than I can say autopsy. And you watch over her, Castle. She's not used to this."

Beckett scoffed.

"Don't worry Lanie, I think she'll find touring much easier than being a cop. Besides the wait in airports, it's more fun than responsibilities. Except for press duty."

"Oh believe me Castle, I'd take press duty over paperwork any day," replied Beckett.

"I'll ask you again in October. Come on, they called our flight, time to move."

If they were tense before the flight, the night of the first concert they were pretty much dead. Stage fright hit them like a punch to the gut, only the Hulk had thrown that punch. How do you combat a stage fright like that? Kate didn't know. Even Jay, usually calm and at ease in every situation, even the most uncomfortable or embarrassing, like the traditional family Thanksgiving dinner, was nearly rolling on the floor. He had already broken two sticks by drumming on the dinner table.

About an hour before the show, Kate was sitting on a cardboard box with one of her guitars, checking if it was properly tuned, when Castle came out of a changing room. "Hey, everything alright?"

She looked up at him, and if looks could kill, he'd look more like a pile of ashes than a human being.

"How did you feel the first time you had a concert this important?"

"I threw up before and after the concert. I was lucky enough to wear a mask with The Gallows, so people couldn't see how green I was. Sweaty and green, not a good combination."

She sighed. "Can I borrow your mask?"

He chuckled and sat beside her. "I left it at home. I'm sure Alexis can mail it but I really doubt it would arrive in an hour."

Beckett groaned. "Jerk," then she went back to her guitar, carefully tuning it.

"My daughter thinks the same. Come on, you've been doing it for ages, this is just a little far from home, that's all."

"Go and tell that to your manager. She's been on our necks since day one. You know she didn't want to grant us the gluten free meal for Matt, our bassist? He's allergic for fuck's sake, and she thought it was too difficult to obtain, most of all in Europe."

He grunted. "I know, that's how she is. It's her way to show her support, so to speak. She's a jerk too, I know, but you got it, right?" She nodded. "Good. Now... can I help you with anything? I'm an excellent bartender, if you want something to drink."

"Maybe later. I have to tune two more guitars though, can you help?"

About an hour later, everything looked prepared for the night.

"Everybody get ready, show's about to start," shouted a guy from the local crew.

Jay sighed. "I'm dead. I'm sure I'll miss every fuckin' beat of every fuckin' song. Goddammit I'm a microbiologist, I work with a microscope, my place is in a lab, not on a stage of a fuckin' rock concert!"

Kate turned towards her cousin and hugged him, trying to keep the guitar away from him. "Everything will be fine JayJay, don't worry. In case we suck, Gina's gonna kick us out of the tour and we'll be back at home in no time."

"Over my dead body!" shouted Jeff, Rising Storm's drummer. "I lent you my drumkit for the duration of the tour and we have already modified so you can play it too, you're gonna play it until October!"

"And if he says that..." continued Castle. "Hold tight guys, you're gonna kick ass! With a BAMF singer like that? She's a charmer."

"I think he's talking about your ass, KBex."

"James Howard Beckett you just didn't..."

The lights went out. The crowd cheered. Beckett felt an arm sneak around her shoulder and Castle appeared in her line of sight. "It's showtime! Go and kick some metalhead ass!"

The partial idea he had when he had gone visiting them at their rehearsal place was more than founded. They were good. They had chances to make it big. To make it huge actually. At the beginning of the second song, he snuck out of the backstage and down to the audience area, heading straight to the bar. It was in the far corner of the room, and he had a good view of the stage. At first they appeared a bit tense, but after a while, they started actually having fun. The years spent playing in small clubs after all, they had some experience!

He got a beer and walked again towards the stage, to get a closer look at the band on stage. And its singer. Because after all he was a hot-blooded man, he wasn't exactly immune to her beauty. Up there on the stage, dressed in skin tight leather pants, high heels and a scrawny tank top that left nothing to the imagination, she looked like a goddess in heavy dark make up. She was so different from the cop that had just got out of work in rehearsal with her badge clipped to the guitar strap, the woman on stage looked like an evil twin.

Up there, on that stage, she was perfect.

That was her natural environment, as if she was born to be on stage. Guitar in hand, microphone in front of her, she looked so at ease as she banged her head, sending her long hair flying around in every direction, she sung of voyeurism, long lost loves, and phone sex with such a spontaneity it was disarming. The smile that crept on her face as she finally let go and gave into the music lit her up like the bright stage lights that were pointed straight at her.

A shiver went down his spine as she let out a high-pitched growl in the end of one song. That girl could definitely sing. And play, as he observed how quickly her fingers ran on the strings of the Explorer or the Les Paul she used for alternative tunings.

The idea of writing something together and then sing it in a duet wouldn't be exactly bad, he thought as he finished his beer and threw the plastic glass in a trashcan. It was almost stage time for him and he needed some warm up, but he had unwillingly sung every song along with Beckett on stage and some of the audience, so he didn't actually need much of that.

But he had an idea.

He went backstage again and grabbed five beer cans from the small fridge in the dressing room reserved for Rising Storm, then went looking for a tray. He didn't have much time, they had already announced the last song.

He was sure he had seen one around, but of course when you need something you never find it. He managed to find a surface flat enough to use as a makeshift tray by stealing Gina's file holder, removing the papers and keeping only the plastic surface. He managed to set everything right a moment before they played the last power chord of the song.

When the lights turned on and they got ready to get down off the stage so the crew could make room for his band's equipment, he waved at them and pushed them on stage again. They had already done the stage call and had thanked the audience, but he lined them up again and offered each one a beer from the fake tray in his hand, then he grabbed the microphone and signalled the sound technician to turn it on again.

"Guys!" he spoke, addressing the crowd "I don't know if you know, but this was their first concert away from New York and they were a little tense. How did it go?"

The crowd happily screamed their approval. He nodded. "Good. Jay back there feared he was going to miss every beat, I think he did good, what do you think?"

Another happy roar. Beside him, Jay covered his face with his hands and Kate was laughing her ass off to her cousin's embarrassment.

"You know I was almost reduced to ashes by Kate here, when I asked her if everything was alright, two hours ago?" The audience laughed. "I think they did good. You think they did good... we'll see tomorrow what the press think. See you in a bit guys!"

They walked off the stage and suddenly, as the guys jumped happily and hugged each other for the successful song, Beckett pushed him further in the back and poked him. "What the hell was that?" she asked, opening her beer can and greedily drinking it.

"I was just trying to cheer you a little bit!"

"Oh it worked just fine! Jerk! So, how did we do?"

"Did you even hear the crowd? Damn, you're fucking ready for Wacken!"

"As in... the biggest metal festival in the world? The festival that usually goes sold out in two hours?"

He nodded. "Yes. I only played there once, but fuck it's awesome. You're gonna love it. Too bad we're doing minor festivals this year."

"And you call Summerbreeze and Hellfest minor festivals?"

"Don't forget Metal Camp. Yeah, yeah... now go and have a shower, I need to get ready."

She shook her head and placed the guitar in the guitar rack so the techs could fix everything. "I'm going, don't worry. Can we go down with the audience or we have to stay holed up here?"

"No, there's a way down on the right side of the stage. Ask the security guy, he'll help you. Enjoy the show!"

"Oh, don't worry, I will."

She walked away from him, giving him a nice view of her ass. Even in the dim lights of the backstage, he could see pretty much everything... and he noticed there was no panty line. That naughty little...

* * *

><p><em>Chapter word count: 2683, Total world count: 9843<em>

_I have to say I already got over 15k words with the last chapter I wrote and sent to my awesome betareader, so I guess I'll aim for 30k at the moment. Yay!_

_Also, here's the link to a tumblr masterpost where I'll write down basic descriptions of everything I think you might not know about the world of hard rock and heavy metal, to let you understand better some things I write. Just delete the spaces thewriterinthebatcave . tumblr post / 105454851250 / cant-undress-your-heart-the-masterpost_

_Let me know if you thought it is useful._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The US tour went by in a flash. Six weeks and twenty nine concerts later, they had reached the final one in New York before they flew to Europe for the greater chunk of the tour.

And being held in New York, pretty much everyone Kate knew came to see them. They were still enroute from Pennsylvania, all tucked in their bunk beds sleeping the hype of the concert off when Kate's phone started beeping incessantly every ten minutes or so. At ten in the morning. Way too early for the kind of standards the life on the road had them got used to.

"Kate, if you don't turn that piece of shit off I'm going to kill you," murmured Jay from his bunk, directly above her.

"You and what gun?" she replied, grabbing the phone from the recess in the bunk that held her phone. Wiping her bleary eyes, she checked the phone. Eighteen different notifications, most of them from friends and family confirming they were coming that night for the concert, but one Whatsapp message struck her. It was from Castle. And it was long, way too long even for a professional writer like him. It took all her concentration to read it while still half asleep.

_Rise and shine Rebel Becks! Listen (better, read), my daughter is coming tonight and she asked if by any chance you're willing to let her say hi for a moment. You know the redhead girl I always Skype with? The one that constantly asks how you're doing? That one. She's kind of a fan and… you don't have to do it of course but she'd really appreciate it… pretty please?_

She couldn't help but smile. Richard Castle, the towering frontman of one of the heaviest metal bands out there, the same band that managed to put the word _fuck_ forty six times in the same album, acting all shy and coy about asking her if his daughter could come backstage and meet her. She was too groggy to decide if it was cute or what.

Quickly, she typed her reply. _Have her come over in the afternoon, I'd love to meet your daughter._

He wrote back about ten minutes later. The constant rolling of the tourbus on the highway had made them fall back to sleep in way less time than that. When her phone beeped again, Matt groaned an expletive. "Oh for the love of Ronnie James Dio's freshly engraved tomb turn that hellish phone off!" he shouted, turning on the other side as if to run away from the offensive noise.

"Shut the hell up, the feedback from your guitar in the in-ear monitors is way worse," she replied.

_Really, you don't have to._

_Castle, for heaven's sake, let me decide what I want to do. I can handle Little Castle for a day._

That last text sealed the matter. Alexis was coming that afternoon and would stay in the backstage area until the show started. And to be honest, she wasn't the only person coming to meet them before the show. Castle had some press duty to fulfill, a couple of quick interviews in the afternoon, but most of all many family members and friends would come. Even her parents had found the time to come and stay for bit. Before they left for Europe, everyone wanted to come and say goodbye, this time for a longer period of time. Jay's parents, Kate's paternal uncle and his wife, had come to visit them yesterday, as they lived in Philadelphia.

They had just come back from lunch at Remy's with Kate's coworkers, when Alexis made her shy entrance in the small room that the owners of the venue had reserved for them. "Can I come in?"

Kate raised her eyes from the notepad where she was working on the lyrics for a new song and smiled. "Sure Alexis, come in." She stood and welcomed with a warm hug. "It's nice to finally see you for real and not through a computer screen."

The teenager had her shoulders hunched, as if she was afraid. "It's an honor to meet you, Detective Beckett."

"Please, call me Kate. My badge is at home now, I'm not a cop today."

"I think she has forgotten how to be a cop by now," said her cousin. "Nice to meet you Alexis, I'm Jay. And these are Matt and Robert, but I guess you already know our names."

The girl nodded, as if afraid to speak up. "Hey, don't worry. We don't bite!" he replied, putting his hand on her shoulder and gently guiding on a run down couch in the corner of the room. He moved papers and a pack of drumsticks he was signing so he could throw them after the concert was done. "Here, sit. Do you need anything? Food? Water? Beer?"

She looked up at him with a shocked look on her face. "You know I'm sixteen and there's a cop in the room?"

Kate chuckled. "Being underage never stopped him from drinking. At least now he has short hair and I don't have to hold it back anymore when he throws his guts up in the toilet."

"KBex, my reputation is already kind of limpy, don't completely ruin it in front of a fan!"

"You're good enough at doing that by yourself," added Robert, preparing his bass for the night.

Hilarity filled the room, from that moment on. They talked a lot, shared stories from up and down the stage, told her things they did when they were her age, around the time they started moving their first steps in the world of hard rock music. They asked Alexis about her life and made her an active participant of the conversation. Kate listened to the teenager very carefully and she found in the girl the same enthusiasm for life and music that once blew on the fire of her own determination. Her eyes lit when she spoke of the concerts she attended, or about her memories of when she was a little girl and used to go on tour with her father, wearing a pink tutu over a Black Sabbath kid size t-shirt and bright blue ear protection, running around the backstages of half the world. The mental image of Castle following a toddler version of Alexis with flaming red pigtails and a tutu among amplifiers and various instrumentations filled Kate's mind and made her smile. That would be a sight to behold.

"What about your mother?" asked Jay.

She shrugged her shoulders. "She wasn't exactly fit to be a mother. I mean, I love her and everything, but she's more… an eccentric aunt that loves shopping. She lives in LA, she became an actress after I was born. She didn't approve of Dad roaming around the world when The Gallows and Rising Storm became famous, and so she left."

"That's sad…" replied Matt. "I guess it's not fun though, staying behind when your partner goes away for so long."

"It's not hard, really," she explained. "Years ago it was harder, but now with Skype and WiFi available pretty much everywhere, it's fine. I think my mom just wanted out. She left without even fighting for custody, so I stay with Dad and everything is fine. I keep him grounded, make him respect the deadlines he gives himself for his books and enjoy the perks of being Richard Castle's daughter."

"Like sneaking backstage to meet your favorite band?" They all turned around towards the door and saw Castle holding the door open. "Kate, someone's here to see you." He moved away and let her mother and father enter.

The detective smiled and reached for them, pulling them in a tight hug. It didn't matter if she was a grown up woman with a stable job and a promising career ahead of her, mom and dad were still mom and dad. The same parents that had bought her first guitar and allowed her to take both piano and guitar lessons by the time she was eight, that had drove her to the rehearsal place throughout high school, and that instead of Barbies got her music sheets for Christmas. And the very stark white Gibson Explorer she still played every night for half of their set.

They still had a lot of time to spend, and pulling Castle and the Becketts in the conversation wasn't difficult. They had a lot of anecdotes to share with them, many of which made Kate blush and call for a long, whiny _moooom_ in order to make them stop. Like that time she had gone to prom with a tartan skirt, fishnets, combat boots and her worn motorcycle jacket with pins and badges.

"Mom, I was sixteen…"

"Well, we don't call you Rebel Becks for nothing. Madison was absolutely right when she gave you that nickname."

"No one would ever think this rebel punk rocker that practiced guitar licks at night with the headphones on would become a cop," added her father.

"That's interesting… now that got me curious. Why did you become a cop?"

Kate and her mother Johanna shared a long, kind of hurtful look. "Come on Katie, I'm sure she won't mind if you share that story."

Beckett sighed. "It's kind of a long story and it's not happy. Do you know of Marie Johnston? The singer of Sick Like Me?"

Castle nodded. "Yeah, I met her some years ago at a festival, she's a nice girl, a good mother too, from what I saw."

Kate nodded. "We went to school together. From kindergarten straight through high school. Madison, Marie and I were inseparable, the disgrace of Stuyvesant High School. Most of all because Madison and I often had to cover for her with her father. Carter was… not such a proper man, let's put it that way."

Johanna put her hand on her daughter's arm. "He abused her. Repeatedly. For years no one noticed anything, but Marie wasn't dumb and realized her dad wasn't a normal dad, that the beatings and the continuous rapes weren't what a normal dad would do to his daughter."

"Her mother wouldn't do anything for her, so when she was twelve she went to the police. It wasn't enough. He denied and they believed him. After all, that's the word of a known rebel pre-teen against a respectable business man? It only got worse. Marie was depressed and started sleeping around, doing drugs and everything. When she was sixteen she got pregnant and Carter didn't take it well. Again, she went at the police for help, still bloody from the beating and with the fresh traces of…" She shut her eyes tight and shook her head. "Still nothing. They believed Carter and not Marie. Her mother covered for him because she was too blind to see anything."

"At that point we couldn't take it anymore," added Jim. "Marie often stayed with us for a couple of days, we love her like our own daughter and we acted. We're both lawyers so we did what we thought was best. We anonymously tipped off Carter for tax evasion and that led to a search warrant being performed on his home and office. They found extensive amounts of child pornography in all his computers and a long contact list of the people that procured him the kids he could then abuse. After his arrest, Marie came to live with us. She then moved to LA when she turned eighteen with her boy to follow her own dreams."

"I went to Columbia, studied criminal law and made my way through NYPD, trying to be assigned to the Special Victim Units. I dreamed of being the Olivia Benson Marie had needed so much when we were teenagers. I got to Vice and then Homicide instead, but it's fine, I like that one too," explained Kate.

"Then one day I received a huge package addressed to Kate," said Johanna. "Marie had sent it, but not knowing Kate had moved out. It was a folder with hundreds of lyrics for Kate to read through."

"I've been proofreading Sick Like Me's lyrics ever since."Castle was shocked, she could read it on his face bright and clear. That was just… sick, she knew it. And as a father, it had probably raged him pretty bad, he had reduced the Coke can in his hand to a crumpled piece of useless tin. "Wow…"

Kate shrugged. "I wanted to make a difference. It took a computer technician to find the photos on Carter's computer for the police to believe her. Just because she dressed with studded leather jacket and had a Led Zeppelin t-shirt instead of a nice white dress shirt like all proper girls. They thought she had been denied her countless whim and wanted to take revenge on her daddy."

"How can the police not bother to even ask questions about a girl reporting rape? It doesn't make sense!" asked Alexis.

Kate swallowed a large lump of rage that had formed in her throat with a large gulp of water. "Alexis, unfortunately there's still this weird belief that women falsely report rapes to get revenge on men they've been with, or exes and whatever, even though the statistics show false rape claims are really, really rare. And investigating sexual violence of any form is often difficult, because even forensic evidence can be discredited with a well-made tale woven by a smart lawyer. Even SVU agents tend to look at some claims from some people just because they don't give them the right impression from the beginning."

"Now you understand why I insist you take kickboxing classes? It's not only for your health, it's for your safety," murmured Castle, still torturing the tin in his hands.

The girl nodded, and a thick silence fell in the room.

"Oh by the way Katie, Marie sent you this," snapped Johanna, breaking the silence. She pulled a manila envelope from her handbag. "More lyrics?"

The cop opened the envelope and smiled, seeing the contents "Yes. And… some pictures of Larry too."

The tension dissipated and they started chatting again until someone from the local crew called them for dinner. That was Kate's parents cue to leave. They remained in the room for a moment longer after the rest went to look for their meal.

"Thank you for coming. Are you sure you don't want to stay for the concert?"

Her mother shook her head. "Katie, as much as we love the fact that you're having your chance to make it and you're enjoying it immensely, a rock concert isn't exactly our place. We just wanted to say goodbye before you left for Europe."

"I appreciate that, Mom, really, but I'd really love if you stayed."

"Has it anything to do with that nice man, Richard?" asked her father.

Kate tensed. "What? No Dad no!"

"Oh come on Katie, we've seen how you look at him. And how he looks at you. You never had that light in your eyes even when you were with William. And do we have to tell him there's still his poster hung on your bedroom wall, back at home?" joked her mother.

She hid her face in her hands. "Is it that obvious?"

"Only if people know you really well. But don't worry, he's on the same page," explained Jim.

"And how do you know that?"

"Daddy's protective instinct turned on and the siren blared like an antiaircraft alarm. Go and have fun Katie, and have an amazing show."

One last hug and she followed the rest of her band to the dinner table.

That night's show was awesome like the rest of them, maybe a bit more because there was a large portion of the audience came from their fanbase. But as Kate signed autographs and took pictures with fans at the merchandise table in the back of the back of the club, right in front of the stage, she couldn't help but notice that Castle's performance that night was much more aggressive and carried more fury in it than necessary, not at least for Rising Storm.

The kind of performance he gave was more appropriate for a concert of The Gallows, where he wore a mask representing the imaginary sociopath he impersonated on stage in the band and screamed into the microphone for two hours.

Marie's story pissed him off a lot.

She couldn't blame him.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter word count: 2745 Total word count: 9843<em>

_And here is the updated tumblr masterpost that explains a bit of the backstory here thewriterinthebatcave . tumblr post / 105454851250 / cant-undress-your-heart-the-masterpost_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Something changed after the US tour. Everyone in the bands and the crew noticed, even the drivers could see it, there was something going on between Castle and Beckett. They spent most of their free time together, when were they apart they messaged like teenagers with their first crush. Jay laughed every time he saw his cousin with Castle while they chatted between their sets or during stops at gas stations.

They were cute, as they tried desperately to keep their relationship as professional as they could, mostly because Gina looked at them like a guard dog ready to bite Kate's head off of she found out they did something more than have a drink together after the show. And Kate needed her head.

Kate's mother kept poking her about Rick each time she called home, asking about him and if there were signs of progression on that subject. The lack of updates or events between her daughter and the ruggedly handsome singer made those Skype calls a funny sequence of poking, prodding and encouragement in seizing the day and confessing her feelings to the man.

Problem was, Kate wasn't sure of her own feelings. And she was even less sure about his feelings. From what she knew, about herself and Castle both, what they had could just be a fling, nothing more than a temporary feeling growing on them for the duration of the tour. For what she knew, it could die off in a couple of months after they got back home.

Was she ready to face a friends with benefits type of relationship for the duration of the tour with her idol? She wasn't exactly sure of it.

But her mother was right, there was something going on between them, something that had been growing for weeks, ever since she had met him for the first time in New York, three weeks before.

She just didn't know what it was. Yet.

This was the kind of situation where she'd drag Lanie to Remy's after their shifts ended and talk to her about her insecurities and doubts. When she decided to break up with Will, the fascinating FBI agent she had met during a case, when he had been transferred to Boston, she had done it after a long night spent on the ME's couch trying to figure out if going with him was better than staying, or vice versa.

All she had to talk to in that delicate moment was her cousin, but no matter how much she loved him he wasn't exactly the best person to go to for matters of love life. The nerdy microbiologist loved two things in his life; his drumkit and bacteria. Human relationships came a lot lower on his scale, and that spoke volumes about his priorities. She loved him, dearly, but he wasn't the best buddy to lean on. At least not for these matters.

She decided then to let it go, burrow the doubts down and just follow the events as they went and enjoy the tour.

Until they arrived in Italy.

They had a couple of days of freedom, they slept in a real bed in a nice hotel just halfway between the venue and the city center so they could go out and sightsee for the first time since they set foot in the Old Continent. They asked the owner of the concert hall for a couple of landmarks to see to and how to arrive there, then off they went, a bunch of American musicians playing tourist for a day. Sooner than they could think, Kate and Rick found themselves alone, walking side by side on the bustling streets of the city.

"Remind me again the name of the city?" he asked looking around, trying to remember where he was.

"Bologna. You really have memory issues don't you?"

"I don't have memory issues, it's just that after so long you stop keeping tracks of where you are and you just go on stage and play. Is there a university around here?"

She nodded. "Yes, there is. I think one of the guys back at the club mentioned that this is the oldest European university, founded nearly one thousand years ago."

"Wow. That explains the number of adults with backpacks around here."

They walked around a while longer, visited a couple of magnificent medieval churches, then went looking for a place to eat. Once that was settled too, they went back to the venue with the bus. Press duty called them, this time both. A website had requested an interview with her too. The first one of her life. It scared her more than the final police academy exam.

On the bus ride, Castle must have noticed she was nervous and he hugged her tightly. "Hey, don't worry. They won't bite," he said, trying to reassure her.

"What if I fuck up and say something stupid?"

"Stupid things make interviews more interesting. You're allowed to fuck up, just answer the questions, no matter how boring they can be and be nice to the guy. Or girl. Do we know what website we are talking to?" he asked. "I have a couple more but I think we have this one in common."

"No idea. Not professional though, considering how Gina reacted when she asked us if we wanted to do those interviews. She wasn't happy."

"Then we're lucky. I have enough experience to know that non-professional journalists ask the best questions and tend to be more enthusiastic about it," he explained. "Most of the time they are fans that desperately try to hide it behind a facade of professionalism, but deep down they are just fans that want to enjoy the show that night."

"I doubt it. I don't even know if the album was released in Italy."

"Kate, we live in the world of webzines and every song ever recorded is a click away. Don't underestimate the power of Internet as a mean to expand your fanbase."

Turned out Castle was right. The girl that performed the interview was nice and a little shy, she politely asked for a picture together that Jay was more than happy to take, then she quickly left the backstage area so not to bother them.

"See? Nothing bad happened. How did it go?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Not bad. She reminded me a little of your daughter, nice and polite and definitely a fan, but shy too."

"Most metalheads are shy and polite. There are some that are rude as fuck but they are a minority, you don't see them often in this role."

"And what role do you see them in?" she asked, curious.

"Drunk out of venues, picking up fights with security, hitting other guys in the crowd for the hell of it... There's a decent variety of choice," he told her. "I was one of them once."

"I seriously doubt that."

"Oh, I was. Ask my mother how many schools I was expelled from. And throughout college I was a rude brat that only wanted to get in a fight. I barely graduated, I think they wanted me out and let me graduate, maybe because they didn't want to keep me there for another term."

"Then what happened?"

He smiled. "I knocked up a girl. And Alexis was born. I couldn't afford to be a rude man at that point, no matter how much rage I had in me. Being a jerkass to every single person in my life, band members included, was not the answer. The Gallows allowed me to put on a real mask and take everything out on the record, and not on people. She made me a better man."

"I think you were a good man already, you just needed to learn how to take that good man out of the tar pit life had thrown you into."

"Tar pit?" he asked.

"Yes, tar. I know life had thrown you more than humanly possible, it swamped you to the point you had no other choice but to become that type of stereotypical metalhead you talked about. Alexis helped you come out of it and wash the grime away."

"I think I still have at least one leg with some stains, or I wouldn't be able to write and sing those lyrics," he mused, looking far into the distance.

"We all have our stains. No one is completely clean. Some are easy to clean or keep hidden. Others, we take them to the grave with us, they are part of who we are, we can't do anything about it."

"So true... How come you got to know me so well?"

Beckett chuckled. "I'm a cop, it's my job to get to know people quickly and see if they killed someone. And I read your autobiography."

"Nah, there's something more. There's something in your words that tells more about what you think than your experience with your job or your tastes in books. I just need to understand what it is, but I kind of like it." He paused for a moment, looking into the distance. Cars had started coming in and a small crowd could be seen in front of the still closed door. Time to disappear before the fans noticed them. "Come, let's get back inside, it's almost time for dinner."

She didn't follow him immediately, she remained a bit longer in the fenced backyard of the venue and thought about that conversation. Not about the tale of his youth, that didn't surprise her, but the depth of her analysis on his life did. How the hell did she come to know him so well in so little time? That was the question that fumbled in her head at that moment.

The uncertainty about her own feelings came back from that place she had showed them some days earlier, this time doubled. Maybe it was more than a fling, more than a passing thing, a summer love story doomed to die with the falling leaves in autumn. The close quartered life they were forced to live in had made every one of them grow close, friendships had quickly formed among the bands and the roadies while on the road but that was expected.

What Kate hasn't expected was the feeling of rightness she had while she was with Castle. They were private people, but each time they talked they learned something new about the other, and it just felt right.

And it didn't make any sense.

Not until that night, when she decided to switch Conversation Over with Better Sorry Than Safe in the set list at the last minute. She had written that song after her break up with Will, it wasn't a song she was exactly fond of as it brought back many bad memories about that period of her life. She wanted to forget and never think back on in the future, but it was a song she had written to encourage herself to take back her life and seize the chances when she saw them.

What did she have to lose? Barely anything worth to live a life wondering what would have happened if only she'd been brave enough to take that chance when she had the time.

What did she have to gain?

Pretty much everything.

Kate had never been one to follow her heart; each decision she had taken in her life had been thoroughly thought out, over and over to the point she could barely decide on what to do sometimes. That was true also for every rebellious act of her life, from defying the social standard that had her already in pre-law to follow her parents' path and becoming a cop, to that one time, when she had consciously decided to declare she didn't believe in Santa Claus anymore and that she wanted a guitar for Christmas. At three years old. She had always been one to overthink serious matters, letting her heart decide pretty much only on what to wear or what to have for lunch.

Her love life had never been a path she had followed letting her instinct guide her. There were always pros and cons to dwell on, feelings were often set aside, and commodity had been a more important beacon to follow.

Still, breaking up with any of her partners, from the high school boyfriend to Will, always hurt like a bitch. And those feelings filled her songs, the only place where there wasn't much space left for her brain to work on. Her music was guided by her heart.

And that night, on that stage in front of a large crowd cheering and acclaiming them as gods, came the moment of clarity, that instant when she had let the music guide her and choose the way, the second that pushed her to do something.

That tour was her chance to make it big? That night was her chance to follow her heart.

Better be sorry than safe, at this point.

The same moment she had handed her guitar to the roadie in charge of them, she spotted Castle in the back, waiting for them walk off the stage after their last song to congratulate with them, just like every other night. This time, as soon as he saw her walking in long strides towards him, she knew he had sensed something was different.

He didn't say a word when she grasped his wrist and pulled him away from Jeff and Damian as they talked, not even when she opened the fire door and walked out in the backyard. He was silent as she punched the keypad on their tourbus to open the door and dragged him in.

Words were meaningless at that point.

Kate let out a surprised yelp when he pushed her against a small table, blocking her with the superior weight of his body. In the dim light filtering through the pulled curtains, all she saw were his blue eyes boring into hers, reading her like a book. His hand came to rest against her cheek, as if quietly asking for permission. She nodded, and he swiftly kissed her.

The sense of relief that washed over her the moment his lips touched hers was soon overtaken by the immediate arousal his touch incited in her. She relished in the heat radiating from his body, his fingers in her hair, his lips on her neck... she felt like a coil had snapped in her, suddenly releasing all its tension.

And it felt great.

Still reeling from the adrenaline surge of the show, she eagerly wound her arms around his neck to pull him closer as she leaned back against the table. Struggling a little bit in the tight spaces of the tour bus, she managed to wrap her legs around his waist, keeping him even closer as he quickly divested her of the skimpy clothes she wore on stage. The sweat soaked garments clung to her skin and made it hard for him to do it as fast as he wanted to.

Grunting in displeasure, he fought with her pants until he finally managed to take them off with one last strong yank. As usual, there was no underwear beneath them. His nostrils flared as he took her in in all her might.

"How much time do we have?" he asked as her hands fumbled with his belt and the zipper of his jeans.

"Not long. You have to warm up," replied Kate, voice a little strained by the effort of the night and the skyrocketing arousal that numbed her ability to think clearly.

"I don't give a fuck about warming up." His voice resonated deep and loud, she could feel the vibration against her chest as he let out a frustrated growl as she pushed his pants down. His arm moved around her waist and lifted her effortlessly to move her closer to him.

"You'll ruin your voice." She tried to sit up but Castle had other ideas. He shoved her back on the table so she'd lie down.

"Then make me scream now."

* * *

><p><em>Word count: 2688 Total word count: 12531<em>

_Last chapter for the week. I'm currently writing chapter 9 but I'll take the weekend off to get some ground. I have to leave some time to my beta to actually check the chapters. Don't forget the masterpost with additional infos and the links to the songs mentioned: thewriterinthebatcave . tumblr post/105454851250/cant-undress-your-heart-the-masterpost_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

From that night on, things became a lot different, for both of them.

In a different manner, things changed even for the rest of the guys, but just a bit. They just needed to avoid the busses for an hour or so each afternoon. And double-check the restrooms at the venues before going in. Jay had already been traumatized when he had walked in on them, there was no need to cause a tide of uncomfortable looks.

Needless to say, Gina wasn't happy. She liked to keep up Castle's unabashed bachelor persona, saying it helped a lot with the female portion of the market. It didn't matter how hard he tried to convince her that this kind of calculation didn't work with him and his fans, even the women. It might have worked with Motley Crue or Poison during the Eighties, but not with Rising Storm and The Gallows.

Anger and frustration didn't have gender, they wouldn't disappear because he had a girlfriend. As long as they kept true to their roots and their fans, their records would sell and the concerts would be sold out. Simple as it sounded, it actually worked pretty fine even after so many years.

But they were consenting adults and a bitchy manager that had hit on him for ages wouldn't ruin their fun. Because they might have been in love, but hell they were having fun, sneaking around and stealing a moment together every now and then, like two teenagers hiding from their parents to find a moment to be alone. The first couple of days they had also tried to keep it a secret from the others, but they had failed miserably when they forgot to lock the restroom door and Jay had walked in

It wasn't exactly the first time he walked in on his cousin, it had happened when they were younger but… the high pitched shriek he let out that roughly resembled a "What the fuck Kate lock the fuckin' door for fuck's sake!" after he had closed the door once again, was fun as hell. Both Castle and Beckett found themselves laughing their asses off and collapsing on the floor of the bathroom.

They had been outed in the most funny way.

They made it work though. They were professionals when they needed to be, respected the timetables and their commitments. Nothing changed on that side, they just spent more time together, doing more than talking or fooling around with a guitar or the keyboard she had brought with her to compose a little bit during the spare time between shows. Both bands had come up with new material for new releases, but Rick and Kate often spent afternoons holed in one of the tour busses just throwing ideas here and there.

Or simply, she read one of the books she had loaded in her e-reader leaning against his thigh while he wrote his new novel on his laptop. Funny thing, he wore glasses to do that. The first time she saw him with his glasses on she couldn't help but smile. Beneath the tough guy's facade there was a nerd. That had an XBox in the tour bus.

"What are you reading?" asked Castle one afternoon, as they remained at the location of the concert, happily slacking in the air conditioned bus, while the rest of the bands had gone sightseeing around Vienna. He had been writing for an hour straight and his fingers needed some rest.

"Notre Dame De Paris."

"You like Victor Hugo?"

Kate nodded. "Yes. And before you ask, yes, I've watched the musical. Multiple times. In multiple languages."

"By multiple you mean…"

"French, Italian and English. Only on DVD though, I never had the chance to see the actual stage performance."

He nodded, quite impressed. "Wow. So there's more than a Joan Jett wannabe in that head!"

"Oh please, after two months I thought you had realized that!"

"Definitely, I realized that when you beat me twice at Trivial Pursuit on the same night!"

"You were drunk as fuck that night of course I beat you!" she raised herself on her elbows and looked straight in his eyes as she spoke.

"Then the next night we played again, I remained sober and you were drunk. And you beat me again."

Her face scrunched in a disbelieving smirk. "I don't remember that."

"I told you, you were drunk. I seriously don't know how the hell you did that. It's a damn record I think."

After that they got back to each activity, letting the soft music coming from the speakers lull them in their concentrated state they had entered before he paused his typing.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" said Kate, once again breaking the silence.

"You don't even have to ask," he replied.

"Why did you start writing novels? Isn't being a rock star enough?"

She felt him shift beneath her, readjusting his position on the couch. "It's kind of a long story, and not exactly interesting. I was a loner when I was in high school, I still am, but when I was younger I was really a recluse. Shy, introverted and angry at the whole world. At that time I didn't have a band yet, that came in college, so I needed to find something to do that wouldn't make my mother fall bankrupt trying to fix the mess I made."

"That bad?"

He shook his head, smiling bitterly at the memory. "And worse. I told you I was pretty much an idiot before Alexis was born, but I loved my mom and I tried my best not to hurt her. I failed miserably, but I tried. Anyway... One day I was... Fifteen I think and a friend had just bought a new skateboard and lent me the old one. Mine had broken and I didn't have the money to buy a new one. Only that skateboard was old and weary, and in the middle of a jump it list a wheel. I fell and broke a leg. That prevented me from being into trouble for a while, but also made me pick up the pen and paper. With a bit of practice I became quite good, and at college I met Damian. He worked for the campus newspaper and he offered for me to write short stories," he explained.

"That's around the time you two started Rising Storm?"

"Exactly. He heard me scream Master Of Puppets out of my dorm room window and recruited me in his band. They had just lost their singer but soon after that it imploded. Damian and I though didn't give up and we looked for a drummer and a guitarist. Jim came when I couldn't keep up both singing and playing, some months later. But music doesn't pay the bills, and when I was fresh out of college my girlfriend got pregnant. In A Hail Of Bullets was written out of necessity, I needed money and I needed it fast."

"How much did they pay you?"

He chuckled. "One million dollars. I had enough to pay the rent and the bills for ages, take good care of my daughter and there was something spare to produce the first album."

"Well, we used the insurance payment from when I was shot last year, I guess it's just fair."

"You mean that scar on your leg?"

Kate nodded, pulling her leg close and showing the twin scars on each side of her right calf. "In and out. No damage done, but insurance paid quite a sum of money. We had already something put away and that was just the icing on the cake."

"Good to know. By the way, do you know where we're headed next?" he asked, never taking his eyes off his new novel.

"After Vienna? No concerts tomorrow but I think we're going to go south to Slovenia. Metal Camp, right?"

"Oh right, I had forgot. Damn, Europe has so many summer festivals it's tough to remember them all. It's smaller than Hellfest, but the atmosphere there is awesome. And they have an awesome beach on the river. Really, you're gonna love it."

(…)

Turned out everyone loved that place. Most of all the beach. The day they were supposed to play, Rising Storm as headliners of the main stage and Undercover Job co-headlining the second stage, it was hot as hell. Literally. The concrete that covered the backstage area was shifting beneath their feet as they jumped off the busses. The sudden change of temperature made them gasp, the blinding afternoon sun scalded them and they looked around trying to find a shady place.

"I don't envy the band playing right now," stated Jay, hearing the music coming from the stage.

Kate walked towards the side of the huge stage and took a look at the audience area. There wasn't much of a crowd yet, but at three in the afternoon and with that heat it wasn't humanly possible. And yet some die hard metalheads dared a heat stroke and supported the band on stage.

"The band at least is covered. You should see the people!" replied Kate. "Hey Castle, you mentioned a beach?"

Best. Thing. Ever. Definitely cooler than the backstage area, calm and quiet, if they didn't stay too close to the beach bar, where there was loud music coming from some huge speakers right beside the tables and benches. The current made the waters of the two rivers that joined right in that moment gurgle and some brave campers were daring the turbulent flow and were swimming. Suddenly Kate regretted she hadn't packed a swimsuit, the water was so clear and bright, one could see the rocky bottom of the riverbed even where it was too deep to touch.

Next time.

In that moment, she was more than happy to be a lazyass laying on a beach towel and enjoying the show, because there was nothing better than bask in the safety of dry land while watching happy metalheads jumping off cliffs or daring the rapids on inflatable animals, with a cold beer in her hand and the reader in the other.

They had time to spend, it was nice to spend the afternoon in open air instead of being confined in the backstage of a concert hall or club, or worse, on a crowded tour bus going from a city to the other. That was the one part Kate couldn't really stand about being on tour. Everything else was just peachy, but the lack of freedom of going around the place, do at least some sightseeing in each city and not only in certain locations where the venues were close to the touristic areas was tough.

And the fact that the only other woman on the entourage was a cold-hearted bitch that pretty much hated her because she had seduced the golden goose didn't make it easier. She missed her space, although every one tried to leave her room, but it wasn't enough.

"Still reading Hugo?" asked Castle sitting beside her.

"Nope, moved to Patterson."

He did a dramatic smirk of disgust. "Uh, the competition! How could you!"

"I bought it, I read it. It's been sitting on my nightstand for ages, now I have time so… you're not the only novelist in the world, you know?"

He leaned closer to her. "I hope I'm the only one you fuck though," he whispered.

Rolling her eyes, she swatted his shoulders and made him sit straight. "If I have to be honest I dated a writer, years ago."

He looked intrigued by her revelation. "A novelist?"

Kate shrugged her shoulders and turned the reader off. "No. He was a scientific journalist. I met him when he worked with Jay on an article, years ago. I haven't seen him in ages though, we didn't last long with my schedule and his absolute hatred for progressive rock."

"How can you hate progressive rock? I mean… Rush? King Crimson? Genesis?"

"He especially hated Genesis, I don't really know why. Damn it, I became this good with the guitar because I wanted to play like David Rhodes, for fuck's sake!"

"I didn't pitch you for a fan of Peter Gabriel. I like it!"

Kate laughed, a heartfelt laugh that made her shake on the spot. "Just because I play heavy metal doesn't mean I can't like something a little bit more… tasteful?"

"Well there's tasteful heavy metal too but that's not what I meant. I thought you were more a Pink Floyd type of girl, that's all. Now I wonder… all those innuendos in your lyrics… Gabriel must have been a great influence for you."

She snorted at his comment. "Oh believe me, if I could write innuendos like he does, Dirty Mind would definitely have better lyrics. I mean, he hid the change he was going through musically and personally beneath such a huge pile of sexual double entendres that you need to listen carefully to see it. He's a genius."

"Yeah, you're right." Castle paused for a moment, checking a tall, long-haired guy as he prepared to jump from a cliff just across the river. He had yellow Spongebob safety armbands and a ridiculously colorful pair of swim trunks that made him squint his eyes as if hit by a direct ray of light. The whole scene was hilarious, with his friends forming a circle underneath the improvised trampoline encouraging their mate. When he jumped, a huge wave ran over them as they laughed. "I wish Alexis was here, she'd love this place."

"Yeah, you were right. You came here before?"

Castle nodded. "Yep, with The Gallows. Coheadlined the first edition, in 2003 with Slayer. It was a lot smaller though, but the beach has remained pretty much the same. I remember I came down here, I wasn't exactly happy that day, I had a rough patch that year, I was doing back to back tours with both Rising Storm and The Gallows and I was never home, I missed Alexis. But I remember hearing someone saying _hey let's go down to the beach_ so I kind of stalked them here. I sat right there in that spot," he pointed at a sandy patch of the beach beneath a tree, slightly isolated from the rest of the area. "Pen, paper, and beer after beer I wrote Snuff and Dead Memories. There was a couple sitting close to me, I think they were German. She wore a tattered t-shirt with me in my full gear on it, you know, mask and jumpsuit and everything… she saw me, smiled and waved at me. Nice, polite, didn't intrude. For the first time in months I felt relieved. Ever since, this place has left its mark in my heart."

"I can see that." Kate looked up at him and saw a shade of darker color shadowing his bright blue eyes, as if a cloud was passing above them, dimming their light. "And you were right. It's a corner of paradise."

"That's the tagline, _hell over paradise_. You'll see tonight. I aim stir up some crazy mosh tonight."

"Can't wait to see that," she sighed, looking at the river. "Damn, I'm so sorry I forgot to pack my swimsuit."

Castle turned towards her, smiling. "You want to swim?"

"I wish but… no swimsuit, I stay on dry land."

"And who said that?"

With an agility not normal for a man of his built, he stood and dragged her up with him, hauling her screaming body over his shoulders. He checked in her pockets in case she had her phone in them and then placed his on her beach towel, laughing as Beckett pounded on his back. "Do you mind taking a look at our things?" he asked a girl reading a book beside them.

Shaking her head, she smiled and nodded. "You go Mr. Castle, I'll take care of your stuff."

"Thank you very much. I owe you a photo with me."

"Finish your next book!" she shouted.

"Will do!" then he rushed to the river.

When he finally launched her in the river, Beckett gasped from the sudden coolness against her skin. The water was so cold it her breath stuck in her lungs. "For fuck's sake Castle why did you do that?!"

He wiped the long, wet hair away from her face. "Because I just felt like it. And because you're smoking hot when you're wet."

She didn't miss the double meaning hid behind his words. Feigning disapproval, she pushed a big wave of icy water in his face. "Jackass. I wish your daughter could see you."

He grunted. "Nothing she's never seen in the Hampton's house." She felt his hands wrap around her waist and he pulled her flush against his chest, as if attempting to warm her up. "But she never saw this."

He leaned closer and kissed her, not caring if people around them recognized them and decide to snap some pictures. Not that she cared much about it, gossiping in their music department wasn't exactly the most talked about subject, but she didn't want his daughter to find out about her and her dad from a blurry picture snapped with a mobile phone.

"I can hear you thinking…" he whispered.

"No you can't. And while I absolutely enjoy kissing you, could we move this to some place a little warmer?"

Smiling, Castle nodded and hand in hand they walked out of the water. When they reached their spot, he thanked the girl that had kept their stuff safe just in time to hear someone screaming. They raised their heads and saw Jay and the rest of Undercover Job and Rising Storm doing a mock fight in the water yelling like there was no tomorrow.

"Are you sure Jay is older than you? Because he surely looks like a twelve year old," he stated, furiously rubbing his hair to dry it up a little bit.

"Yeah well… says the man that plays videogames in his underwear yelling at the screen when his character finally manages to kiss the girl he's been wooing."

"First of all, it was hot. Second, Morrigan is worth all the wooing and the screaming she gets."

Kate shook her head. "I'm dating a nine year old on a sugar rush."

* * *

><p><em>Word count: 3065. Total Word Count: 15596 <em>

_I head for the 30k mark now! There are more details about Metal Camp (I'm referring to the 2010 edition, the second one I attended and one of the hottest festivals - as in we were in an oven - of the world) in the masterpost. Here's the link, just delete the spaces __ thewriterinthebatcave . tumblr post / 105454851250 /cant-undress-your-heart-the-masterpost_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The season of open air festivals closed as soon as September rolled in. They kept marching on, through Eastern Europe, a quick stop in Turkey then back again on the main land for the last month on the road. The busses were perpetually running, the crew was always restlessly moving equipment in and out and the weariness was starting to catch up with the bands.

The wet summer heat of Europe quickly left more room for the chill of northern latitudes as they moved up to Scandinavia, through Germany and Netherlands. In Spain, Italy and the Balkan region they woke up and were already covered in sweat, whereas when they approached the Northern Sea they had to add layer after layer of clothing in order to feel fine. And fortunately for the two singers involved, the air conditioning was less and less needed, sparing their throats a lot of time spent inside impossibly dry environments that sometimes made their voice raspy and strained, mostly after an uninterrupted streak of three or four concerts.

And they were homesick. The initial enthusiasm had slowly faded away and the longing for home and the loved ones started to seep into all of them, tech crew included. Castle spent more time Skyping with Alexis, Kate called home more often, Jeff spent most of his spare time going through the pictures of his son that his wife had sent, and Jay mumbled nonsensical bullshit about bacterial cultures in his sleep. Even Damian, famous for his love for continuous touring, was starting to get a bit fidgety and missing his bed and his bathroom.

One night, after the concerts and the customary showers, as they chilled out waiting for the equipment to be packed, Damian had mentioned how he missed his large shower and his beloved shower gel that wasn't available in Europe, all hell broke loose. Because if there was a commodity that was easily overlooked while organizing events like a world tour, it was the bathroom. The tourbuses had pretty decent toilets, nothing amazing but they worked fine. But they had to rely in the showers offered by the venues and the concert halls, and most of the time they sucked. Warm water finished pretty quickly, they weren't exactly stark clean… small and cramped shower stalls without even a proper cover abounded. The rare nights they had spent in hotel rooms they had basked in the fact that most of them had bathtubs and they had all shamelessly exploited that feature for hours. Most of all Castle and Beckett, though mainly for other reasons.

To make it short, they wanted to go back home. And Beckett and Jay also wanted to go back to work.

Yet, the last gig they did in London had a bittersweet aftertaste in the end, when they did the curtain call all together for the last time. It felt as if something had broken. That night, they would leave straight for Heathrow in a taxi, dressed properly for their flight. They'd hand their passports to a clerk and wait for their plane to lift and go back to the United States after what felt like an eternity and they'd go back to their lives.

Kate had still one week of leave, to get some rest and get used to the frenetic life of New York after so much time spent pretty much doing anything but being frenetic, but she slightly feared the moment she would set foot in the precinct for the first time after months. She had kept tabs with Esposito and Ryan, doing a weekly roundup on Skype. Sometimes Montgomery and other cops would join them, pausing their work for a moment to see how their colleague was doing in the world of rock stars. Yet, she was afraid she wasn't cut out to do it anymore.

She had fallen in love with the life on the road. She had already realized that she loved doing concerts in the previews ten years, since their first small gig in a bar near college, ever since she had tasted that thrill of being on stage. But life on the road was something more. Going from one place to another, seeing new people every day, literally feeding off the energy the crowds at her feet released as they jumped in time with the drums… she had found out that she craved it. If their first few concerts were ridden by tension and stage fear, after a couple of weeks they got so used to it they were happy to go on stage and rock the hell out of their instruments.

Going back to her job felt… boring.

She was lost in her thoughts while waiting for their heavily delayed flight, sipping a bland coffee that tasted like rinse water as she sat on one of the benches in the waiting area after they had checked in. "I can hear you thinking," murmured Castle, flipping through the pages of a magazine he had bought at a newsstand opened all night at the airport.

She sighed. "Castle, would you please stopping use that phrase? It doesn't make sense!"

"I can actually hear you mumbling as you think. So it makes sense. What's up?"

He was sitting behind her, so she leaned her head back and rested it against his broad shoulder. "Is it weird that I don't want to go back?"

"You mean you don't want to go back to New York or you don't want to go back to your life?"

She sighed. "A bit of both."

"OK then, totally normal. The only thing that stopped me from asking our then-manager to organize another tour was Alexis. She couldn't live on a tourbus with eight other men, definitely not the right environment for a child."

"Right. It just feels… I don't know. Do you think I'll ever be able to go back to normality?"

He chuckled. "Yes, we all do it. Look at your cousin, he's been talking non-stop about going back to work for a week. Damn, that guy loves his job!"

"Yeah…" she replied with a smile. "He's a bit of a genius in his field, and he's really driven about it."

"But from what you've told me you're just as driven in your job. And you should know that the city needs you. They need all the good detectives they can get, really."

"What a way to impress a woman. Nice one really. God I'm so ready to lay down on my back and not on that god-awful bunk."

"My back will be surely happy about it," he commented. "Mine wasn't bad though."

"Good for you. But I really need to go back to my bed. That mattress was too thin and too rigid, really, not good for anything, not just my back."

In that moment, the speaker finally called their flight and they proceeded to the designated gate. The flight home was nice and uneventful, they managed to get some sleep and when they finally landed at La Guardia they found a small welcome back committee waiting for them after the security checks.

"It's so good to see you Katie…" whispered her mother in Kate's ear when she hugged her daughter tightly. "I hope the flight was nice."

"I slept through most of it Mom, but it was nice. Except for the delay."

"Good. And for the rest? Everything alright?"

She nodded. "Yes Mom, I'm fine. I just need to crash on my bed and sleep the week off."

The look her parents exchanged didn't mean anything good. "Ehm, about that… there's a bit of a problem with that. Your building is going through some heavy renovation and fumigation because of termites and a bunch of other insects that practically ate the foundations and it's not habitable at the moment."

"And you've known for how long?"

Johanna shrugged. "Two hours. We went there to open the windows and let some fresh air in but they didn't even let us in. They said they'd be finished in a couple of days, maybe three at least for the fumigation. The rest of the renovations can be done even with the tenants in their homes."

"Wow, just perfect. Where will I stay then?"

Her father was about to talk when Castle arrived. "You can stay at my place."

They all turned towards him. By the look on their faces they didn't look exactly happy. "What?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "We have space. And I seriously doubt my daughter or my mother will have anything to say if you stay for a couple of days."

"Castle, I don't want to intrude…" But she did. She knew her parents would love to have her back home with them, even if only for a couple of days, but she had grown accustomed to her independence and she didn't want to go home with them. For dinner or lunch, it was just fine. Two, maybe three days would kill her.

"You won't intrude at all. Don't worry, Alexis is at school for most of the day, Mother has her own acting school. We've got room."

"Mr. Castle, we really appreciate your help," said Jim.

"No problem. Why don't you two come for dinner… let's say tomorrow, so we have some time to settle down and at least start with the laundry?"

"We would be honored, Mr. Castle. We look forward to hear what you have to say about the tour. We've read interesting stuff about you and we'd really like to know you better, since you're dating our daughter."

"MOM?!" snapped Beckett, practically jumping at her mother's words. Castle jolted himself, but managed to keep a semblance of control.

"Oh Katie please, I can recognize love when I see it. And I already told you all those months ago, when you played here in New York. He's good for you. Anyway, here are the keys, the landlord will call you when they are done. See you tomorrow?"

Castle nodded, as Kate accepted the keys. "Yes. Eight sounds good?"

On the cab ride towards his loft, Beckett sat in the corner, slightly embarrassed. "I can't believe my mom said that…"

"Relax Beckett, everything's fine. She just likes to poke you, like my mom does. We might be adults but in the end we're still children in their eyes."

"Yeah OK but really was that necessary? Damn Jay will mock me forever."

He groaned. "At least you have a boyfriend. What does he have? Bacteria and viruses?"

She smiled. "Yeah, and it seems he's happier with them than with any girlfriends he ever had. He's just made that way, he can't help it. The microscopic world is his one true love."

The rest of the ride was spent silently, holding hands and just enjoying the silence as they sped towards their city and back to normality. The moment they entered his loft, they finally felt like they had both gone back to their standard life. Changed, because that tour had changed them both, there was no denying that, and yet everything was back to normal.

"I'm home!" he shouted as he closed the door behind him.

Not ten seconds later, Alexis jumped off the stairs and straight into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging her father, screaming with joy.

"God I missed you dad!"

"I missed you too Pumpkin, more than you can imagine. It's so good to see you. Where's Grams?"

"I'm here Richard," Martha's voice came from the corridor that led to her room. "It's good to see you back in one piece. Oh, and who's this nice young lady?"

Only then, Alexis noticed Kate as she stood beside the door, holding the handle of her suitcase. The detective awkwardly stood back as she felt she was intruding in the family reunion taking place in front of her.

"Kate, what are you doing here?" asked the teenager.

"My building is being fumigated and your dad was kind enough to offer me a bed and a roof."

The girl let go of her father and she leapt in the cop's arms, clearly happy to see her. "Welcome back to you too. Grams, this is Detective Kate Beckett, the frontwoman of the band Dad's toured with."

"Ah, the famous Kate! It's so good to meet you, finally. Come inside, you two must be terribly tired. We'll show you the house."

The loft was just gorgeous. Delightfully furnished with great use of natural light to avoid the use of artificial one. She loved the living room, it looked so normal but it also showed Castle's personality and taste. The simplicity hit her. He practically swam in millions and his house was a compendium of the concept of keeping things simple. Like his bedroom, neatly set up so everything was at reach, with his walk-in wardrobe and the private bathroom and direct access to the study.

And that room was a gem. Not only it was set up so he could write in peace, but he had a small soundproof cabin where he could record vocal lines. It was a miniaturized recording studio in his home, though not enough to allow a full band to record, but it was more than enough for him. With the rest of the band living in LA, it would have been tough to take a plane and find a studio to rent only to record the vocal lines of only a song, and definitely impractical. In there, he could do it by himself, maybe do more takes, and then they'd decide together which one to use after a demo was mixed.

The dream of every singer.

After the tour, they went their separate ways and spent some time in the shower, scrubbing down the grime of the trip from their body. They emerged around an hour later, Castle dressed in a plain black t-shirt and sweats and Beckett in yoga pants and tattered The Gallows shirt.

"Nice to know you're a fan," he whispered, hugging her. She smelled like cherries, he loved that.

"I never hid that from you."

"Nice to see you show it. Come on, Mother just told me dinner is ready. I hope you're hungry."

"... And then Jay wakes up, totally hungover, in the wrong tourbus, grabs Jim by his shoulders… and you know how big Jim is and most of all how long his beard is… and says, 'Damn KBex you look great!' Then passes out again."

Alexis and Martha burst into laughter at her father's tale of Jay's first night in Europe, after their concert in Portugal. "Oh dear Richard, you seem to make everything funny, even poor guys' mishappens."

"Well, this one was funny indeed. But seriously, this was really a funny tour. We had lots and lots of fun."

"Yeah, except for Gina being a total bitch," said Kate.

"Oh don't worry about her, Katherine," replied Martha. "Gina may look like a rabid dog ready to bite, but she's only a very determined woman that works in a field generally left to men. Tell me, was it hard for you, as a band, to find a record label?" The detective nodded. "Do you think it would have been easier if you had been a man?" Another nod. "See, top managers like her are usually men. She's always under close inspections by her bosses, if her bands fail, it's all her fault. If they do well, it's their merit. She works hard and wants things to go right for everyone, that's why she's a bit bitchy."

Later that night, the Castle family and Beckett were all cuddled in the living room with hot cocoa and a movie on TV. A new one, finally, after they had gone through the DVDs they had brought from home over and over again during the long hours on the road.

By the middle of said movie, Castle noticed Kate had fallen asleep. Smiling, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gently pulled her, so she could rest against him. He had missed the physical contact between them, he had to admit it. And he didn't exactly care if his mother and daughter were in the same room and hadn't been informed of their updated relationship status.

When the closing titles rolled in, Alexis moved to take it out the DVD player and noticed Kate fast asleep against her father.

"Oh, Dad, we forgot to set up the guest room, I'll take care of it."

Before he could reply, Martha interjected the conversation. "I don't think they're gonna need the guest room dear," she casually dropped as she herself headed towards her own bedroom.

The teen's brow furrowed. "What does that mean? Oh wait a sec… you two didn't…"

Castle could only react with a sheepish smile on his face and a tiny nod.

Alexis shook her head. "I should have known… girls with guitars, right?"

* * *

><p><em>Chapter word count: 2827 Total Word Count: 18423<em>


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

After they came back from Europe, they quickly got used to living their normal lives. Everyone went back to work, back to their standard day. The only thing that changed was the fact that Beckett and Castle were dating, but for the rest, everything looked like before. They were all busy writing new songs, and with the money earned from the tour, Undercover Job were aiming higher this time. With six songs already written and demoed, they were looking into writing some more before going back in the studio in March to record their new album.

Those were the plans.

Until the beginning of January when everything blew up like a frigging hydrogen bomb.

The holidays had come and gone, Kate had managed to have Christmas day free while she was on call on New Years Eve, with no calls until four AM luckily, and everything looked just fantastic. Two days after New Years Day though, she was called in for a suspect death in a hotel room. A body had been found by the maid in a room that was booked three days earlier. With the Do Not Disturb tag hanging on the door, no one checked on it, but after three days the maid defied the tag and went in.

And regretted it soon after.

When Beckett, Ryan and Esposito arrived, they found CSU sweeping the room and Lanie bent over the left side of the bed, partially hiding the sight of the body to them, taking notes on her pad. "Hey, what do we have?" asked Ryan.

"Seems like you were called for nothing. It looks like a drug overdose." She pointed at the drug paraphernalia on the nightstand. "TOD is a bit hard to determine right now, I need to do some more tests back at the morgue but if I have to throw a wild guess I'd say this man died on New Years Eve."

"What a way to go…" said Esposito, going through the victim personal effects.

"Don't get excited too soon, we've had cases that looked open and closed suicides but that turned out to be homicides. You sure about the COD?"

"I won't be until I open him up and do some tests, but judging by the fact that he's alone, there are no signs of anyone else being here and we've got enough… heroin, I think, to kill a horse. CSU also found pills scattered around the room and two empty bottles of whiskey by the nightstand."

The ME's explanation was more than logical. Beckett looked around the room and there were no signs that indicated the presence of a second or third party in the room. "This man checked in with a fake name, do we have an ID among his things?"

Espo took the wallet out of the plastic bag. "Yes we do…" He looked at the DMV photo on his driver's license and then at the body, a couple of times, since from his point of view he could see it. "...and our unlucky guy is Damian Westlake." Ohhh :(

Beckett felt like a ton of steel had been dropped on her chest out of nowhere. The air stuck in her lungs and she couldn't breathe for a moment or two. She walked closer to the bed, jerkily, and asked Lanie to turn the body's head so she could see for herself.

"Holy fuck…" That was all she managed to say when realization struck her.

"What?" prompted Lanie. "You know him?"

Becket nodded, eyes wide and unfocused as she stared at the corpse in front of her. "He's… I went on tour with him last summer. He's Castle's best friend."

Thick, awkward silence fell in the room and they all looked at the body in front of them. The detective could read the disbelief in her friends' and colleagues' faces as they stared at the lifeless person on the bed. The lineaments were disfigured by the decomposition, accelerated by the central heating system of the hotel pumped up to maximum capability, but hell she'd seen that face for months every day at every hour possible and damn she could easily identify him.

Damn it.

"Kate, are you alright?" asked Ryan, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She barely registered his touch, but she shook her head. "No, I'm not alright! I… fuck… I need to get some air."

Never in her life she had bolted away so fast from a crime scene, not even that one time when she was a rookie uniform and she had been called to guard a gruesome double homicide and suicide scene. Fresh out of the Academy, her stomach wasn't ready to face that kind of carnage. That was the only time when she hadn't managed to keep it cool at the scene of a crime.

And now she felt like was twenty two again, in that alley, throwing her guts up in a trashcan. Only this time, she wasn't disgusted, she was devastated. A friend had killed himself. Her boyfriend's best friend and bandmate had killed himself.

Fuck.

Ryan found her in tears, leaning against the wall just outside the hotel room.

"Go home, tell him. We'll take care of it and notify Montgomery," stated the younger detective, helping her up.

"He'll be…"

He nodded. "I know. Call him to the precinct, if you feel it will be better."

She shook her head. "No… he'll suspect something happened to Alexis if I ask him to come to the Twelfth. I can't… I'll have to tell him… are you sure you can deal with it?"

Another nod. "Yes Beckett, we can deal with it. Unfortunately, this one's looks like one of those open and closed overdose cases. Just go and tell him."

She wiped away the tears and sniffled, trying to calm down a little bit. "Thanks Kevin. I appreciate it."

"No problem. Just one thing before you go; did you ever have the feeling he was using?"

"No. He had a history though, he had checked into many clinics over time to treat his addiction, but not in the past five years. And no, he didn't use any drug during our tour, I would have noticed."

"Did he drink a lot?"

She gave him a minute nod. "Yes he did. But most of us did, I exaggerated quite a few times myself but they were sporadic nights here and there, not a common happening. We were all very committed to making that tour go smooth, I tell you."

"I never doubted that. Go, we'll take good care of him."

The ride to the loft felt eternal, but as soon as she got there, Beckett felt the sudden need to run away. She had done that speech so many times before, it was now well ingrained in her routine, but damn if it didn't hurt every time. As she stood in the elevator though, it felt like every second she spent there drained her energy more and more. She felt exhausted by the time she reached the door, almost too tired to even ring the bell.

When Castle opened the door, his bright smile made her feel like running away. She couldn't ruin his good mood, not like this, not with this news. He loved Damian with all his might, he considered him the brother he never had, they had gone through so much together it just didn't feel right.

But she had to.

"Hey gorgeous, what are you doing here?"

She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Castle… something happened to Damian." The bright smile suddenly disappeared from his face. "A… a maid found him in a hotel room in Lower Manhattan… he… it looks like he died from a heroin overdose."

She wasn't prepared to see him fall to the floor like a soggy rag, crying his heart out.

The next day, Lanie declared Damian's death an overdose of a cocktail of prescription drugs, heroin and alcohol. Whether it was accidental or suicide, she couldn't determine. The quantity of substances in the room was astronomical, it sure made it look like it was intentional.

The funeral was held a couple of days after the ME's office officially released the body. Kate went along with her bandmates, she stood beside Castle the whole time, helped him go through it without bursting in tears. They had tried to keep the press out of it but someone tipped them and after the short ceremony the exit was crowded with photographers. The news had spread fast over the internet, and many demanded a press release to explain the circumstances of his death. Gina, efficient as always, though stricken with grief herself, quickly organized a roundtable where both bands appeared in front of a selected crowd of journalists and camera crews that would record everything.

She spoke through most of it, answering the questions she could with what the police had told her. Standing in the back, Kate observed the freak show of the death of a celebrity playing before her eyes, focusing only on Castle. He sat in his chair, eyes low as he stared at Damian's mask he held in his hands like a lifeline. He didn't say a word, just remained there completely unmoving and silent while the others spoke for him. They were all beyond devastated, but they also knew how close Rick and Damian were, they let him be for the time being. Even Gina let him be by himself for the whole duration of the press conference.

After the gruelling meeting with the journalist, Kate drove the whole Castle family back to the loft. Martha and Alexis invited her to stay for a coffee, while Castle just mumbled something about not feeling well and needing some time alone. They let him do as he pleased, for a while, and the three women gathered around the kitchen island around a cup of coffee for Kate and Martha and tea for Alexis. Martha shared some stories about the mishappenings of her son and his best friend from before Alexis was born, from their first gig as Rising Storm in the music hall at NYU to the day they asked her if she knew anyone that could make cheap silicone masks and refused to tell her why. She found out about a month later, when she came home to find Rick in his first mask trying to tie Damian's behind his head, without having his long hair caught in the buckles. The scare they gave her surely took away ten years from her life, or so she said.

After a couple of hours Kate went to check on Castle. She found him sitting in his study, only a small lamp to shed some light on him. He was still dressed for the funeral, the black jacket lay discarded on the couch in the study but he still wore the rest of it, even the black tie, though now loosened.

He still had Damian's mask clutched in his hand, while the other held a half full tumbler.

Careful not to startle him, Kate walked beside the armchair he was sprawled on and knelt beside him. At first it looked like he hadn't noticed her, but he smiled when she touched his forearm, trying to get his attention.

"How are you holding up?" she asked, voice nothing more than a whisper.

"I just had to witness a bunch of idiots preying on my best friend's dead body like vultures, how would you hold up?"

She nodded. "I would shoot them, one by one, not caring for the consequences."

He chuckled. "Your way sounds so civilized… I just wanted to grab a hammer and have my way with them… turn that conference room into a living version of a Cannibal Corpse song."

"Well your way sounds more fun than mine. Do you need anything? Are you hungry?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't really think I'll eat for a while now. Not after that conference." He looked down at the mask, resting on his knee. "You know… his first design for his mask was a pig. A demonic pig, to be precise. He wore it through the first days of The Gallows and up until we finished our first big tour, after we released our first album. He changed it after one day I brought Alexis to the recording studio because I couldn't find anyone to take care of her and he had his mask with him. It scared Alexis so much no one could make her stop crying until Damian took the mask and made her throw it into garbage bin. He said he needed some help so he could defeat the big bad monster that ate all his chocolate, made her throw the mask away and then gave her a chocolate bar."

"Yeah, I got that vibe from him, that he was good with kids."

"You saw how he was with the fans, the younger they were the more fatherly he became, even though he didn't have kids on his own. He said we were his kids."

"He was the oldest one among you, right?"

"Yes he was… two years older than me and it made him feel like he had some sort of responsibility. It made him feel important, but not because he was legally allowed to buy alcohol. He took pride in making sure we were all sober and drug free, but in the end being a celebrity started gnawing away at him and he fell in the same trap he made sure we wouldn't fall. That's why he designed his second and definitive mask like a more extreme version of Hannibal Lecter's mask in Silence Of The Lambs, because he felt like he was a psychopath that needed to be contained."

"I thought you were the psychopath on stage."

"I'm the faceless sociopath," he murmured. "More faceless than sociopath at the moment. Damn… I feel completely drained. I don't really know how to feel in this moment." Tears welled in his eyes.

"Rick, it's alright, everyone feels different when grieving. We can't predict it, we just can go on with it and try to get over it. It's hard, but unfortunately we have to," she told him. "And anything you feel right now, it's the right thing to feel. You and Damian were so close he was more like a brother than a friend, you're allowed to hurt."

"I know it's just… it just hurts so much Kate I can't… it feels like I can't breathe…"

As he shut his eyes closed, tears began to fall down his cheeks and he leaned forward to lay his forehead on her shoulder. Kate quickly took the tumbler out of his hand and moved it away from him, before wrapping her arms around him and gently holding him tight as he cried. The strength of his weeping shook him and it marveled her how such a big, strong man could actually look small and insecure.

He looked like a lost child.

She let him vent it out, his tears soaking her white dress shirt as she kept holding him tight. "It's gonna be alright Rick, everything will be fine, with time."

"I just… he was… he was my best friend Kate I… for more than twenty years we've been doing this, together. Always together and now… he's gone and I can't…"

Seeing him like this broke her heart. They had been together for less than six months and yet seeing him like this made her physically hurt for him. "Rick, listen to me now; I can only imagine how you can feel and God knows I wish I could take some of that pain on me, so you'd feel a little better. But you've had a tough day, with the funeral and the press and those assholes firing questions as if nothing had happened. It's late and you're tired. Why don't you take a shower, put on something more comfortable and go to sleep?"

He wiped tears and snot away from his face with the back of his hand. "You're right. Shower and bed sound good. Just… do you mind staying here with me tonight?"

"As long as you need. But I have to go to work tomorrow."

"Just tonight, it would make me feel better."

Kate nodded. "I'll go ask if Alexis has anything to lend me. You go and start the shower, OK? I'll be there in a minute."

Letting go of Damian's mask, Castle took her hands in his and held them tightly. "Thank you Kate…"

She leaned closer and kissed him, tasting his tears on his lips. "Don't even mention it."

* * *

><p><em>Word Count: 2786, Total Word Count: 21209<em>

_Now, it's Christmas and I know tragedy isn't exactly the best thing to read but... sorry, not sorry, that's the story. It's going to get better though. Give it time. But also because it's Christmas, there might be a delay in the updates. Alex, my great beta reader, has a life and can't just sit at her computer reading what I send her, because I'm quite fast and sometimes I send two chapters a day. She has stuff to do and I understand that, so I don't push. I may sometimes ask her if everything is alright if I don't hear from her in three or four days, but I don't push. This is the last betaed chapter I have, I'm currently writing the 13th chapter. I'm not asking her to waste time on Christmas day to read through my stuff, Christmas is dedicated to family and I don't want her to waste the opportunity. I'll update as soon as she sends me the next chapter. Be patient, everything will be alright. And one special note for my friend Alessandra: if you're going to post a mile long review like the one you sent me for Red Rain, I swear to Chtulu that... I don't know do you even drink beer anymore? Because I owe you one._

_Anyway, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to Everyone. Happy Holidays if you're not Christian (like me, I'm a Catholic-raised atheist). Enjoy the festivities with your family and have a merry time. I wish you all the best and all the fun you can have. _


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 **

The old saying about time healing all wounds had proved to be true, in her experience. When her grandmother had died, many years before, Kate had thought the world was going to end. Instead, day by day, she had learned how to live without her presence and with only her memory. Experience had cemented that knowledge, when she saw distraught people leaving the precinct after she notified the death of a loved one, come back to the trial looking better.

Apparently, it didn't work for Castle.

Things looked promising, he was slowly becoming more like the cheery man she had met a year before, but after a couple of weeks, he regressed back to a constantly brooding, foul mood. He isolated himself in his study, refusing to see anyone. Some days he just didn't get out of bed at all.

Alexis and Kate were worried, but Martha kept telling them that he had always reacted that way, ever since he was a kid. Something bad happened? He'd shut everybody out for a while then come out of it by himself. As worried as his mother was, she was used to that kind of behavior. She had seen it often, she told them, and knew that one day or another he'd just get out of that state, take a shower, shave, and go back to live his life.

She just didn't know for how long he would remain in that state.

That was what worried Kate.

She had seen this happen before, with Marie when they were sixteen. Her best friend dropped into a vicious cycle of depression, self-harming, drug abuse, and borderline alcoholism when her father's abuse became gradually worse and worse, after she had tried to report him the first time.

She had witnessed first hand how badly depression could reduce a person, how much grief could physically hurt someone. Seeing him like this was even worse.

One day she finished her shift at work and went to the loft instead of going to her own home. Alexis had texted her a couple of hours earlier inviting her for dinner, and she thought it would be a good way to go check on him without looking too intrusive. She was his girlfriend, that was true, but she didn't want to make him feel like she was hovering over him too much. Marie hated when she hovered on her, Kate didn't want to repeat the same experience she had watching over Marie with him.

So she went to the loft, hoping to find her boyfriend in one of the better moments. Because there were better moments, short periods of time when he'd actually talk and managed to be civil, but they were rare.

When she knocked on the door, Alexis opened up and greeted her with a tiny, tensed smile. "Hey, how are you doing?"

Kate shrugged as the teen let her in the loft. "Tired."

"Tough case?"

The detective nodded. "Yes, but we caught a break and we're waiting for the warrant in the morning. No point in staying there to wait for something that's probably going to arrive tomorrow. You? How was your day?"

Alexis' shoulders flopped. "School's tough and Dad doesn't make it any easier."

Kate smiled, but there was sadness behind that smile. "Still bad?"

She nodded. "Yeah… he won't talk to anyone, won't come out of his room unless he's sure he's home alone. When I came home from school he was in the kitchen and when he saw me he bolted to his room without a word. He looked like crap Kate, really. I don't know what to do anymore, it's been a month now and…"

She leapt in Kate's arms and hugged her tightly, needing comfort and a shoulder to cry on. If it was tough for Kate, for Alexis it was unbearable. Kate could only hold her and let her cry it out, like she had done with her father before he shut her out too.

"I think he spends most of his time drinking," said Alexis, between hiccups.

"What makes you think that?"

"I checked his credit card balance. He's been taking regular trips to the liquor store down the street every day after Grams and I go out, for two weeks now. I don't get it Kate, he's never been one to drown sorrows in alcohol, I've never seen him drink more than a beer or a glass or two of whiskey, although I know he exaggerates sometimes on tour, it doesn't make sense."

"It does, Alexis."

Martha appeared from the hallway, wearing a somber look on her face. "It makes more sense than you can imagine dear."

"How?"

Martha walked to the kitchen and sat on one of the stools. "Because your father was a borderline alcoholic before you were born. When he was your age, he was a troubled kid, you both know about this. He was always making a mess, anywhere. I don't really know how he managed to have such good marks in school, I tell you. I tried to be there for him as much as I could and I knew he tried to stay out of trouble but it wasn't enough, evidently. When he was twenty one he started with the heavy drinking. Damian warned me about this problem and we both tried to convince him that it wasn't the right way to deal with how messed up society is, but no matter what… he drank. He drank so much it looked like his soul had been poured into his glass and he had to put it back into his body."

Kate knew about it, he had never been secretive about his past, but apparently his daughter didn't. Or at least she didn't know the extent of her father's issue.

But Martha continued her tale. "For the next three years, he spent pretty much every penny he earned in scotch. It took your mother to get pregnant with you to make him realize it wasn't the right way to deal with life."

"What happened next?" asked Alexis.

"He checked in rehab and wrote his first novel. That's what happened. He stayed there thirty days and came back nice and clean and with a manuscript worth one million dollars. You know why your father writes only when he's on tour and edits when he's at home? Because tours stress him and he doesn't want to go back to the bottle, so he writes to fight stress."

It made sense.

"Then why isn't he writing right now?"

Alexis was getting restless. Knowing her dad had a coping mechanism that had kept him away from alcoholism for so long but he wasn't applying it kind of made her mad, and with good reason.

"Alexis, I think your dad is still grieving," said Kate. "He's not thinking clearly at this point."

"But this is not good for him! He's a douchebag right now, how can you even condone his behavior?"

Kate shook her head. "I don't condone his behavior, I know he's a jerk right now but I've seen what depression can do to people. He needs to come out of it by himself."

"But…"

Martha gently touched her forearm and stopped her. "Kate is right. Your dad needs to do it on his own, he already did it once, he can do it again. One day he'll just snap out of it, I've seen it happen before."

"With him? Grams, you said it took him knowing he was having a child the other time and unless Kate here gets pregnant in the next friggin' week I don't really know what can make him snap!"

The girl was beyond exasperation. She stormed away from the kitchen and upstairs, probably to hide in her room. Kate and Martha exchanged a meaningful look before they both let out a deep sigh.

"Is there any chance that…" asked Martha.

Beckett chuckled. "Ehm… nope."

Martha sighed again. "Didn't hurt to ask."

Another month passed. February had come and gone and March looked promising with weather forecasts being all sunny and warm days ahead of them. That's when Kate got tired of waiting for Castle to realize he was acting like an idiot, except for short periods of time when he would come out, seemingly healthy and on the way to recovery and thank everyone for their patience. And apologizing for his despicable actions of the past two months. He kept telling them he was working on himself so he could get out of that shithole he had been dumped in, that he was trying and that it would soon be over if they let him have his own way with the gloom. That he was sure he'd beat it.

But he was visibly worn out. Like an old t-shirt you've worn too often for too many years. He was pale, he looked bleak and his eyes lacked that light that made Kate fall in love with him. And despite his almost pathetic attempt to hide it with a shower and a quick brush of his teeth before he came out and let them know he was actually alive, he smelled like alcohol. Alexis was right, he had been sneaking out when he knew he was alone and was buying booze to kill the pain. He had gone back to that dark period of his life Martha had talked about.

He had taken the road Damian had fought so long to pull him away from.

That was the last straw.

One day, she called in sick and stalked the entrance of his building from her car, pretty sure he wouldn't notice her. He went out, properly dressed, with a baseball cap and black sunglasses, and came back from the liquor store his daughter had mentioned ten minutes later with a paper bag under his arm.

She followed him inside and practically ambushed him in the hallway at his front door.

"Castle, stop for a moment."

He jumped as he tried to open the door with trembling hands. Two months and he had already reduced himself to a scared, trembling mess.

"Beckett, what are you doing here?"

"I'm here to talk you into reason. Don't you see how low you fell? You really think this is the right way to react?"

He finally managed to open the door and walked in, as if trying to run away from her.

"Don't fuckin' run Castle! You need help and you need it now!" she yelled, shutting the door behind her with a loud bang.

"I'm fine Kate, I'm getting better! Just give me some more time please!"

He was pleading, like a kid terrified of a punishment after he had done something that had been forbidden. She knew that look, she knew it all too well. She had seen it hundreds of times since she had become a cop, from pimps trying to make their way out of prison or cornered murderers trying their last ace up their sleeves to get out of the interrogation room unscathed.

She had seen it so often she could practically smell it the same moment suspects started talking a certain way. When they said a particular word or a specific type of sentence she knew: they were lying and they were trying to fuck with her.

Suspects stopped fooling her when she was a rookie still in her patrol uniform, a barely coherent Richard Castle, a man she had shared the bed with for months, had no chance. No matter how hard he tried.

"You're not fine. You need help. This is not the right way!"

That angered him. She saw it, clearly. Rage suddenly rose like a beast of fantasy lore. "What do you know about needing help, uh?"

She groaned in frustration. If that's what Alexis had to deal with while she was gone, she had the feeling the teenager would soon look for another place to live soon.

"I see people grieving every fuckin' day for fuck's sake Castle! I know a depressed person when I see one!"

"I'm not depressed!"

"Yes you are! Your mother told me about that time you checked in rehab! You were drinking to forget and you're doing the same now!"

Castle walked around the kitchen island as if to put a barrier between them. "I drink because it helps me think."

"I seriously doubt that. Tell me, how many words you've written? I know your coping mechanism is writing, if you were drinking to think you would have a freaking War And Peace-thick novel ready to be published right now."

"I have…" he stopped as she shook her head and crossed her arms at her chest. He knew she knew he hadn't laid a single word on paper or word processor in months. Not while smash drunk at least. "I'm working on it. I just have a lot going on."

"Well, let this lot go and get some freaking help! You've shut everyone out for heaven's sake!"

"Where should I get that help now?"

"A therapist, a friend, your girlfriend!"

"My best fuckin' friend fuckin' killed himself!" He shouted those words so loud she had the feeling even the doorman had heard him. "What the fuck should I tell a fuckin' therapist?"

Kate had never heard the word _fuck_ repeated so often in the same sentence. "You could start with what happened. But damn it Castle you shut even your daughter out. You have no idea how worried she is!"

"Leave Alexis out of this, that's not the point."

Leave Alexis out of what? He wasn't even making sense. Alexis was a moot point of that conversation, he needed help and he needed fast, or he'd lose his daughter. That was the point of everything. He was ruining his relationship with her and he didn't even realize it.

"How long have you been holed up in your study?" she asked.

"Who cares. It helps me."

"Two months Castle. You've been in there for two months, leaving only to buy booze and to lie to your mother and daughter about getting better. I can take it, people lie to me all the fucking time but them?"

His nostrils flared as he grabbed the ledge of the kitchen island in a white knuckled hold. Damn he was angry.

"Get out of here."

"Excuse me?"

He took a deep breath. "Get the fuck out of here. You don't know anything about me. You just don't fucking know and you don't have the right to come here in my home and tell me what I have to do?! Get. The fuck. Out."

"Castle I… I'm just trying to help you!"

"Get out. Don't come back."

The finality of those words felt like a thick drape had been thrown over her. She suddenly felt both too warm and too cold at the same time. The usually meek and calm Richard Castle she used to know had transformed into his on-stage alter ego, the Faceless Sociopath as he called himself. Just without the mask. If the character was scary when he pulled it out of himself, seeing it live, without the mask was just terrifying.

Without a single word, Kate left, shutting the door behind her.

It took her the long ride home, as she got stuck in traffic, to realize the magnitude of what had just occurred.

He had thrown her out of his house. And out of the life he was wasting away.

She couldn't help but cry as she called Alexis and explained what had just happened.

* * *

><p><em>Word Count: 2596 Total Word Count: 26152<em>

_Merry Christmas to all of you. And don't worry about the story, everything will be alright. _


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Kate Beckett was a tough cookie, everyone knew it. From work to personal struggles, she always fought for what she thought was right, but this time she felt like she had to give up.

Castle didn't want her help, and he had voiced it pretty clearly.

His raspy, rough voice still echoed in her head any time she had a quiet moment. She had come to dread the silence because every time she could hear his words replaying like a broken record in the back of her head. He had sounded so threatening she was close to pulling her gun out to keep him at bay. The rage that had crossed his face, even for the shortest moment, scared the crap out of her. She wasn't one of those trigger happy cops that pulled her gun out every time she had the chance to, never been and never planned to become one, but that day... damn she was scared.

That feeling still made her skin crawl, from time to time. Even after nearly two months.

She kept tabs with Alexis and Martha, they met pretty regularly at Remy's, the diner just round the corner from the precinct, but they tried to avoid talking about him. Apparently, things hadn't changed much after he had shoved Kate out of his life, maybe once and for all.

So she dived into music. While not at work, she constantly listened to anything that came up in her mind. She raided her favorite record store multiple times and the list of songs on her iPod exponentially grew, day by day, as she purchased both digital and physical albums, getting in touch with the latest novelty in music business, though never forgetting the roots. From time to time, most of all when she went for her daily jog in Central Park, she chose old tunes as a soundtrack, mostly from her childhood.

That helped fill the void and keep her mind from replaying that scene over and over again until it drove her mad, but it also fueled her mind and made her pick up the guitar every day after work and compose new material. By the beginning of April, she had three additional songs ready to be recorded complete with lyrics, and weirdly enough, only two dealt with Rick breaking up with her in that violent, destructive way.

After all, she didn't have much to say or write at that point. Castle was right, she didn't know him. She knew of him, from what she had read in the past and the tiny tidbits he had let her know, but during those six months together, he had never opened up to her like she had done to him. He had come to know pretty much every little detail of her life, from her first struggles to hold a guitar too big for her to her first real successes as she kept practicing day after day during her adolescence.

She had told him the worst details she had always kept to herself about Marie and her experience with her struggles... everything.

Him? He had kept everything for himself. Everything. When he talked about his past, he had kept everything inside. Damn, she was a reserved person but Castle was so closed in on himself, no doubt he had imploded. He wasn't able to share, it was like a physical inability. Even when they had sex...

They got naked but not once he had let the wall he had built around his heart fall down. It was like he couldn't undress his heart.

And it hurt. Sometimes it felt like she had been cheated. She felt like she violated her trust, someway, although he never actually betrayed her. Not with another woman at least.

Or so she thought, because around mid-April she spotted a short article on Page 6 of the Ledger with a grainy photo that showed him sitting in a random Starbucks facing a blonde woman. The angle made impossible to see the face of the woman. He looked tired, way worse than the last time she had seen him, with longer, unruled hair and beard that made him look so different from the ruggedly handsome man she used to date.

Before he pushed her out of his life.

The short article pointed out that the two looked close and that Castle had been single for a long while - they had managed to keep their relationship off the media, fortunately - and that after the death of his best friend he was probably out looking for comfort.

The paper ended up crumpled into a tight ball and into the recycling bin with one swift motion.

And it hurt like a bitch.

Not because she thought it was true, damn, in those conditions not even the fiercest cougar looking to marry a rich man would even take him into consideration, but because...

Yeah, why did that hurt?

Kate didn't know why it hurt so much seeing him out of the loft with a woman. Drinking something that wasn't scotch and acting in a civilized manner in the presence of multiple human beings, or so he looked like. It wasn't Gina, she was sure. Different shade of blonde, and this looked more like fake, dye blonde.

The picture was grainy to say the least, but he looked like he was smiling. Tired, in urgent need of a visit to a barber, yet smiling.

It haunted her for the rest of the day, even catching a man that had killed his lover in order to prevent her from telling his wife about the affair didn't wipe that odd feeling away. It just felt right, for a moment, and then that picture came back, like it was burned in the back of her eyes.

That night, when she came home, she grabbed her guitar and came up with another song. She stood awake until the wee hours of the night to complete it from head to toe, lyrics and tablatures for Rob and Matt included. It needed a little bit of adjustment, most of all Jay had to add the drums pattern but it was mostly done. That way, they had enough songs to start a decent recording session. Maybe they didn't have everything, the new album still needed to take shape, and the last time they had recorded their album it had only taken a definite shape when they were recording in the presence of their producer, but they had enough to start. Nine songs weren't much, definitely not enough to make a full record, but they had something. The rest would come later. Fillers weren't hard to write.

Or that's what she thought.

Meanwhile, things had started to become a little better at the loft.

After his burnout with Beckett, Castle had walled himself up in his study one more time, for a week straight, doing nothing but drinking and writing everything he felt or saw in his alcohol induced state of alteration.

He woke up in the bathtub, dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing for at least a week, sneakers included, soaked in cold water. He had dried blood on his face, coming from his nose apparently, and his knuckles were scraped and the skin was red. An empty Jack Daniels bottle floated in the tub right beside his left knee. If only he had been coherent enough and not hungover as hell he'd be able to scold himself for getting in that situation, but it was too cold.

Straining against his creaky, rigid joints and muscles, he pulled the plug and let the cold water go down the drain, then turned on the hot shower spray until the cascading droplets were scalding his skin. It took him ten good minutes to gather enough strength to get up and slowly take off the dirty, soggy clothes. Another minute to make up his mind and decide to grab the shower gel and wash himself.

The water had to turn cold again before he stood up from the wall, closed the tap and dried himself up with a towel and got dressed again, this time in clean clothes.

He purposefully avoided looking at his reflection in the mirror, not ready to face the reality of how down he had fallen that time.

For the first time in months he pulled open the dusty curtains in his bedroom, opened the windows and let some fresh air enter. The smell of New York during springtime was invigorating, with a soft breeze bringing the different scents from Central Park that covered the awful odor of smog.

He brushed his teeth, thoroughly, to get rid of the foul aftertaste left by the booze. A disgusting glaze had formed in his mouth, it felt like sandpaper mixed with molasses, thick and grainy at the same time. It stuck to his tongue and teeth, felt like someone had stuffed a dirty sock in his mouth. It took him three additional swipes of toothpaste to get rid of it. He added some mouthwash too, just to be sure the foul breath had gone.

He breathed deeply for long minutes, sitting on the edge of his bed, as he gathered the strength to do something normal. He needed to do something normal, or he'd reduce his life to a conscious vegetative state. Wobbling a little bit, he pulled the filthy sheets away from his bed, flipped the mattress over and put new, clean sheets on. Despite the tremors in his hands, he did a decent job.

Normal. He needed to do something normal.

He cleaned the room from all the garbage, losing count of all the bottles laid in disarray on the floor when he reached forty two. He sweeped said floor, thoroughly, and cleaned the bathroom too. It took him one hour to do something he usually did every Saturday morning in twenty minutes, even less sometimes.

Once his quarters were once again habitable and presentable, he got rid of the garbage and moved into the kitchen. That almost drained his energy. Alexis was still in school and there were no signs of his mother's presence. Good.

Fixing himself a healthy breakfast, he took a look to the newspaper left on the counter. As he realized he had spent more than two months walled up in his room, doing nothing, it made his heart sunk. He had fuzzy recollections of what had happened during those months, but he was sure as hell going to get out of there.

He just needed more strength. His arms looked like two deflated balloons. Not that he was the kind of man that would kill himself in the gym just to look pumped, but he was a big man by nature and doing even just a little sports had always made him look more buff than the average. He was a decent basketball player, though he usually preferred football and rugby, given his size. The building had a gym, he'd better take a visit there sooner than later.

Right... sort things out. Get back to a healthy lifestyle. Do something.

He needed to check into rehab as soon as he could. Or if not rehab, something similar. He needed help. And he needed it fast.

He had hit rock bottom, but he hadn't started digging even lower yet. There was still hope. He had done it once, he could do it again.

Kate was right, alcohol wasn't the way and...

Kate?

Where the hell was Kate?

He shoved a mouthful of eggs in his mouth then went looking for his phone. It lay forgotten on the nightstand, battery dead. He pulled the cord out of the drawer and powered it up quickly. There were dozen of missed calls and text messages from two months before, people sending their condolences and people trying to call. As he checked the dates of each missed call or text he noticed they had gradually become more and more rare until they disappeared altogether. The last text was dated from two weeks before. The last call one month.

He had completely isolated himself he didn't even know how his own daughter felt.

Yet he had that nagging feeling something was deeply wrong in all this, he couldn't get past it. He needed to know.

Luckily, he heard the door open and close. Still a bit weak and limping, he scrambled to stand up and walked barefoot towards the door. His mother was just taking off her jacket when he arrived.

"Oh, good to see you awake," she said, her voice tone definitely verging towards indifference.

"Mom I..."

"Don't say it Richard. You need more booze?"

He shook his head. "No Mother I... I quit. That's enough. I'm done. I'm done with this. I need to get better and I need your help."

She turned around and gave him a long, good look, from head to toe. "Help? Are you even serious Richard? You shoved us away for two months and you expect me to believe you right now? Just because you showered?"

He nodded. "Yes. I'm done with alcohol. I'll see if I can make it by myself and if I can't, I'll check in rehab. Just... give me some credit and tell me what I did."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded.

"Sit down kiddo, I'll make the coffee."

Once Martha was done, Castle was sitting at the kitchen counter, arms crossed on the wooden surface and head cradled in them. "Please tell me this is a nightmare."

His mother was punishing him, that was for sure. "No, pure and simple truth. Ask Alexis when she comes home."

"And Kate?"

"She's going on with her life I guess."

"Do you still see her?" he asked, his eyes peeking from his forearms.

"Yes, she's been keeping tabs on us, why?"

"Don't tell her I'm doing this. I'll tell her myself, when I'll feel better."

Martha sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing Kiddo."

"Me too Mother. Me too."

The next day he had his first appointment with his shrink, a tall, blonde doctor that treated him with firmness and steadfastness. Exactly what he needed.

* * *

><p><em>Word Count: 2369 Total Word Count: 26174<em>


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

She didn't expect to receive that invitation.

Every year the record label they were signed to had a party with all the major bands and musicians signed, on the rooftop of the building where they had their headquarters. Last year they had been touring so they couldn't go, but this year, they had no excuses. They had to go.

Kate at least had to go. As the frontwoman of Undercover Job, the new prot￩g￩ of the label, she had to go. The others politely refused, citing work and family business to attend to, but she just couldn't. She had the day off and was on call from the next afternoon, not earlier. She had time and opportunity.

So she went. She went shopping with Lanie, picked a nice black dress and matching shoes, added one of the many sleek leather jackets she owned - biker style, but newer and without pins and patches - and got a cab there. She expected a nice night, the chance to meet many illustrious colleagues, and maybe find a good producer for their next record by asking around if they knew someone in the area that didn't ask for unaffordable fees, and most of all she expected to have some fun.

She so needed it after the last two months and more...

When she finally walked out of the elevator, the warm air of New York welcomed her once again with a gentle breeze that made her realize the jacket was a good accessory for the night. At that altitude, there was an almost perpetual wind, and though summer was approaching, nights were still cold. Also she needed a place to hide her wallet and phone.

The first step outside and she was practically sucked into a deep conversation on guitar equipment withTaylor Momsen from The Pretty Reckless and DJ Ashba from Sixx A.M. and Guns N' Roses. She didn't even have time to walk to the bar to get herself a drink and make sure the organizers knew she was there and the two musicians snatched her and after a quick greeting and introduction they were already discussing pros and cons of certain gear as opposed to another type of set up.

Then Nikki Sixx himself came and they were all discussing touring anecdotes with the two less experienced girls, as Taylor Momsen herself had just started her first real tour with her band and had found the way to come to New York and make everything fit just to attend that party. It was only a national tour for her though, her other job as an actress was definitely more demanding than her band and she had to wedge that short time on the road with the filming of the TV series she starred in.

A show Kate had never heard of, but who cares. She was nice and fun, they had a good time chatting all together while having a drink.

"So, Kate..." asked Nikki at a certain point in the conversation. "I read you're a cop and you're keeping your job. How can you make everything work?"

The question everyone asked. Even almighty Nikki Sixx was lured to ask her that.

"Well, we all have a job. I mean, my cousin is a microbiologist, our bassist is a music teacher and we use his school as a rehearsal place. Our guitarist is a bank employee. We started late, so we need to keep our jobs to pay the rent and the bills."

"Ah yes, same for me. If I could just be a musician, I'd give up acting as fast as I can say now. I've been doing it for so long..."

"Yeah well... I don't really think I could give up my job. I love it too much."

"What exactly do you do in the force?" asked DJ.

"I'm a homicide detective. When I applied for the Police Academy, I wanted to work in SVU, you know... Law And Order kind of stuff. I never made it though, I worked in Vice for a while, then homicide," she quietly explained, toying with the label of her now empty bottle of beer.

"Wow... Vice you said? I've been busted by those guys so often in my life..." said Nikki, slightly amused. "Vice and Narcotics had become daily visitors, for a long while."

"I know, I read your book." Kate knew her voice made her sound as if she was ashamed of that.

"Wow, you read the book? I'm impressed! I never heard of anyone in the industry that read that book." Ashba stared him down for a long moment. "Well, except for my friends of course. Now tell me, what do you think of it?"

Subject quickly changed from her job to books. More people arrived and soon it became a little bit of a mess to keep up with every conversation going on. Kate was pleasantly surprised to know that she wasn't the only person in the music business that liked to read while on tour and she found more people who endorsed the use of ebook readers for practical reasons. An unidentified voice in the crowd that sounded a lot like the singer of a post rock band of which she couldn't remember the name even told her he had to pay an additional fee for his suitcase because it exceeded the permitted weight. Because of books. He had taken on Russian literature and those books weigh a ton.

Oh, she knew the struggle all too well, ever since she went to Ukraine and stayed there for six months during college and decided to come back with some nice books. The fee was unbelievable. But that was a story for another time.

During the next hour, she found herself talking to one of the label's best known producers, one that she couldn't afford even if she got shot in the chest and used the insurance to cover every single penny and some more. They talked about their plans for the album that they were going to record and they came up with a good idea: record a rehearsal session with some decent equipment and sound and post it on YouTube. That would sure grab some more fans and make some money roll in, most of all if they played the social network card the right way.

That was the moment she saw him.

Castle.

He came out the elevator dressed in a washed down pair of blue jeans and a black shirt, sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Hair neatly cut and arranged, but still unshaven. He never grew much of a full beard and sure it didn't grow as fast as some other men, but the dark stubble looked months old. It gave him an unruly shade that added to the same old ruggedly handsome look that worked wonders.

Her guts twisted and turned multiple times as she followed him while he walked to the far corner of the terrace straight to Gina. He didn't look like he wanted to be there at all.

And suddenly, she didn't either.

About half an hour later she saw him approach the bar. She watched him as he ordered a drink - scotch, she thought, from the color - when her phone buzzed in the inner pocket of her jacket. The sudden sensation against her ribs made her jump and she pulled the phone out. The caller ID said it was Esposito.

Kate excused herself and walked towards a quieter corner of the place before she answered. "Javi, I'm not on call tonight please... what's going on?"

She heard him sigh on the other side of the line. "Kate..."

Oh shit. He never called her by first name, unless something big happened. Something terrible.

"What...?"

"It's about Montgomery."

He didn't want to go. He didn't want to be social.

Not yet.

But his mother insisted, for two days straight, constantly reminding him of the party she thought he had to attend, in order to make people realize he wasn't dead. He was still sorting things out, trying to get better and out of the self-destructive spiral he had fallen in after Damian died, and all his concentration was focused on that single task.

He didn't have time for parties he had always hated and that he tried to avoid every single year.

Until he couldn't stand his own mother's voice constantly echoing in the room while he went through the tons of shit he had written during those two months of drunken blackout. He didn't even remember those times he emerged from his room to talk to his family, and apparently he had been sober then, how could he remember the scribbles that now filled all the notebooks he had stored in his bedroom and study?

So he paused his sorting, then showered, dressed and walked to the label headquarters. They weren't far and he had energy to spare, after he had started therapy and had stopped with the binge drinking.

He didn't look at anyone once he got there, just walked straight to Gina and sat beside her at the bar.

"You look surprisingly good," she said, not even greeting him the proper way.

When the bartender asked him what he wanted to drink, he ordered a glass of ice tea. Regular, alcohol free, refreshing ice tea. "I'm clean now," he murmured.

"Good for you." She picked at the olive in her Martini. "What have you been doing lately?"

"Lots of writing. I killed Derrick Storm, I need a new character to write about."

"What about the record deal? You owe the label two more records, you know that?"

He grunted. "I don't owe the label shit. The contract didn't say anything about deadlines. When I signed it I had my lawyer look carefully for anything like that and there aren't deadlines. You can push and prod all you want, but you won't see anything from either Rising Storm or Gallows any time soon."

His words had a finality that scared even himself. Gina was being the usual jerkface and he just didn't have the time nor the patience to deal with that. He just wanted to make sure people saw him up and going, then walk home and delve back in the fictional world his obnubilate brain had created while under the influence of a heavy, constant flow of alcohol. There was reasoning behind what he had written, what his mind had conjured was a creepy but sensible story, a trip to hell and back that could actually be arranged into something coherent.

A new novel or a concept album, he still had to decide.

On the side, he was walking the long road to get out of his addiction. Because he wanted to get better for Kate. Alexis and his mother had already got over it, they were helping him getting better, but he had acted like a jerk and an asshole with Kate, he needed to show her he was completely healed before he did anything.

"So? What do you want to do? What have you been doing all this time?"

"Grieving. Sobering up. Getting back in touch with reality and mending my relationship with my mother and daughter... you name it, I did it."

"What about Kate? I had the impression you had grown pretty close last year."

He downed the rest of his soft drink. "Kate and I are on a steep slope at the moment," he lied.

"She's here, you know?"

He turned around and quickly scanned the crowd, just in time to see Kate striding towards the elevator while pushing buttons on her phone, but instead of punching the call button, she took the more direct stairs down. Not even caring about Gina, he jumped off the barstool and followed her. The lights were off and when he closed the fire door behind him, the sounds of the party on the terrace got muffled by the thick safety glass. In the dense silence, he could hear her speaking on the phone... crying.

What the hell? as he walked down the steps, trying not to clumsily fall because he was going too fast. After two months of being sober, shallow tremors would sometimes return and make him falter or drop objects he was holding. He didn't really want to be caught like that.

He walked round the corner and saw her, standing right next to a desk, still on the phone. He stopped, partially hidden, and listened for a moment.

"...Yes, yes I understand. I can't come at the moment but... yes, my colleagues, Detectives Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito are coming. Yes... No I don't remember their badge numbers I'm sorry I... Of course Sir I understand. Is anyone else involved? I mean... the rest of the family..." One long pause. "Right, thank you Sir, I really appreciate it. I'll come over as soon as... oh. Alright. I see Sir. Do you have an idea when they'll want to have the funeral?"

Funeral? Who else died? He wondered, still listening. "Thank you Sir. I will."

Then she closed the call. Only at that point he dared to make himself known to her. "Kate what..."

He had seen her crying. Multiple times. Tears of sadness, of joy... but damn when she turned around he knew those were tears of grief. The anguished, hurtful look on her face felt like a punch to the gut for him. "Kate what happened?"

She leapt to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and hiding her face into his neck. As dumbstruck as he felt, Castle couldn't help but do the same and hold her tightly against his body. It felt like nothing had happened between them, as if he hadn't let alcohol take over his life and had thrown her out of his life two months before.

"Shh Kate... calm down," he said in a hushed tone. "Tell me what happened please..."

"Montgomery..." she sobbed against his shirt. "There was... he was going home from the precinct and he saw a mugging so he stopped to help the girl and the other guy just shot him. In the middle of the street. Javi called me a while ago and... I can't believe it."

"Damn Kate... I'm so sorry... I don't know what to say."

"Just don't..." she started speaking, but she stopped mid sentence only to grab his face and pull him down to kiss him.

He pulled back. "Kate no... It's not..." But she kissed him again. And again. "What are you doing?"

"I know you don't want me in your life but... just tonight... just pretend you still want me, please..."

He shut his eyes and laid his forehead on hers, trying to think. She was in a precarious situation, distraught and in the deep throes of grieving, it wasn't right. It felt like exploiting her weakness in that moment. But the longing for her that had gnawed at him for the past two months was having the best. He still loved her, so very much, he just wanted to be completely healed before he tried to mend things with her.

But...

"Come, I know a place..."

* * *

><p><em>Word count: 2540 Total Word Count: 28714<em>


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Things caught in a whirlwind after the party.

Castle went to Montgomery's funeral, listened to Kate's tearful speech as she praised and mourned her captain and mentor from the back row. A polite, non-intruding presence. He tried to remain anonymous, spoke little to anyone that talked to him and went away before they put the casket in the ground. He had already caused too much trouble the week before, at the terrace party, by giving in to her request.

For two days straight, he had walked around the loft telling himself he was an idiot, the most stupid man on Earth for just… giving up all the promises he had made to himself and just having sex with her on a desk in the far corner of the record label headquarters.

It was so wrong on so many levels he couldn't even face it.

So he just let it go.

He ignored it. He tried to push it in the back of his mind and focused on his own struggle. He wrote a lot, managed to actually give coherent form into what he had scribbled during his blackout time into a story. He wanted to make a concept album with Rising Storm. The rest of the band agreed with him and they were all ready to fly to New York and work together on the music. Jim could fill in as a bassist while recording, and for touring, if they wanted to go touring, they could always find a turnist to help them.

He also went against his tradition of writing books only on tour and started writing a new one right there and then. The lyrics were ready, the guys were working on the music and vocal lines usually came as the last step of composition for them and he had time to kill. Lots of time to kill. So he sat in his study, laptop on his thigh, and wrote word after word of a new novel, with a new, better character being born.

A character based on Kate Beckett. The cop with a passion for heavy metal that solved crimes while jumping on and off stages of clubs all around New York with her underground band. And the music journalist that falls in love with her during a concert. Based on himself. A little bit, though he preferred to put only the good sides of him in his characters, as if to clean his conscience.

About a month after the funeral, she started calling him. Repeatedly.

He was in the middle of the recording process of the fastest album ever made and often left his phone out of the recording room, so he wouldn't be disturbed. He often missed her calls because he couldn't hear his phone but there were times he just ignored her calls.

He wasn't ready.

Yet.

Getting there, but not yet.

After a couple of weeks Kate stopped trying to call him. And he made sure his family wouldn't tell her anything about him. He didn't want to be an obstacle to her. A recovering addict wasn't the best person to hang around, most of all for a busy woman like her. He had done enough damage to the people around him, and delving into work helped him keep his mind and body off.

The worst part of addiction was the psychological need for the substance and the effects it brought. There were days he craved that feeling of floating away from reality, but he had the weapons to fight it now. He was focused and determined to get out of it.

One song at a time.

With little publicity and no tour incoming, they released the first part of their first concept album just in time for Christmas. It took them less than six months between composing, recording, mixing and publishing. A Guinness World Record feat, almost. They were beaten by a pop group from England, not that they cared much, but the day it came out they were happily partying at the headquarters of the label, Castle felt like he had accomplished something big in those long months. The moment Kate had told him Damian had died, he had thought we would never compose a single line of music again.

Not a year later he was sitting in front of his agent as she read the reviews of their latest work, awesome reviews it seemed, wondering how could he have accomplished something like this in so little time.

He had no idea. Absolutely no freaking idea.

He just sat there, a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a pen in the other, hearing Gina continue to speak but not exactly listening, lost in his thoughts. So many things had happened, all because of his poor choices.

That sucked.

He had managed to mend some of the messes he had made, but that night with Kate, his weakness had enlarged the already big rift between them. He had no idea why she had tried to contact him for so long, all those months before, and again around September. No clue. Even Alexis and Martha seemed unaware of what Kate was doing, she had practically stopped talking to them too.

She had sent letters too, but he had never opened them. They rested in the bottom drawer of his desk, in a neat stack. Waiting for the day he'd be brave enough to open them.

Probably never.

So, after the release of the new album, he kept writing his new novel. He couldn't get Kate out of his mind. Sometimes he thought he was living in a corny Backstreet Boys song back from the nineties.

Around Christmas, he received an text from her. The usual Holiday greetings and a smiley icon. He politely replied with a message with the same tone, but didn't try to call her. She didn't try either. Alexis received a phone call from Kate, and she asked to talk to Martha, but there were no requests to talk to him. Defeated, he accepted it. She didn't want him in her life.

And he couldn't blame her for it. She had been thrown out of his life one, she had needed him once after Montgomery died but that was a moment of weakness on both sides. It just served to separate them even more.

That was it.

They were done. This time for real. No burned bridges to re-build, no way to make amends.

All his hope was gone.

In February though, Castle found something in Alexis' room. She was at school, his mother was out doing God knew what and he was home alone. He had been writing for the better part of the morning, and he decided to take a moment off and do some chores around the house. The cleaning lady was on vacation and he didn't mind doing them, so he started from his room and cleaned the first floor, then he moved upstairs. He was sweeping the floor when he saw something on the desk. An opened manila envelope. What attracted him was the address, most of all the neat writing. Kate's.

He touched the paper with his fingertip, feeling a sort of sizzle of electricity as he did so. Beside the envelope, there were an unmarked CD and a letter.

The letter wasn't for him, he knew it was wrong, but he couldn't help but take both the CD and the letter. He quickly finished mopping his daughter's room then he put away the cleaning instruments and went downstairs in his study.

He sat at his desk and opened the letter.

_Dear Alexis,_

_I know I have been very distant in the past few weeks, but as I told you months ago, we finally found a producer and we managed to find time to record our new album. The CD I sent (I hope it arrived in decent conditions, I don't exactly trust postal services these days) is a rough mix. It's not the definitive version, we're still working on the mixing and we're working on adding a string quartet in a couple of songs so many things may change. We have also time and space for a bonus track, maybe we'll find inspiration later this year and write something new._

_To be truthful though, there are many reasons I stopped calling. One of those is your father. Unfortunately, something more happened between us, months ago. You remember that my captain died in May? Well, your dad was there when Javi told me and we… you're old enough to know, we had sex. What happened next made me realize that we weren't meant to be together. I listened to his new album and I have to say it hurt. Some lyrics he wrote hit pretty close and after that, I doubt we'll ever have another possibility. I'm sorry to write this. In the past year and half, ever since you walked in the dressing room before that concert, I have come to think of you not like my boyfriend's teenage daughter but more like a friend. I'd never even think of trying to be your stepmother, that's not my role, but I thought we could work as friends. I immensely enjoyed your company and I wish we could do meet sometime in the future. I have so many things to tell you and I don't want to cause more deforestation by writing them all here._

_Anyway, I hope you appreciate the sneak peek of the new album - we still don't have a title, feel free to help us choose one - and I hope you like the song I wrote about you. What you told me about going to concerts, feeling the rush of adrenaline from the crowd inspired me to write that piece not long after we went to that concert together, remember when we saw Sick Like Me and you told me about your perspective? I wrote that song the next day. I really hope you like it. If you don't, tell me and we'll pull it away from the official tracklist when we press the album._

_Remember that I love you and I will always be your friend. Maybe sooner than later I'll gather the courage to come by the loft and take you out to dinner. Right now, I don't think I'll be able to face your dad. Not yet. Getting there though._

_Love ya, keep rocking your school books and keep your amazing grades amazing._

_KBex_

Through tear-filled eyes, he put the CD in the stereo and started listening.

Some songs felt like being hit repeatedly by an enraged Hulk on steroids. There weren't titles written anywhere, not on the factory label of the CD nor on the letter. The music was a mix of the old record and something new, a certain heavier something they probably picked up touring with Rising Storm. Rocked the hell out of him. But knowing Kate, he knew the lyrics often meant more than they seemed. And some were meant straight for him. He could even determine what events had inspired her to write some of those songs.

He sat there, head in his hands, eyes closed and tears flowing freely as he listened and understood what those songs meant.

Kate had suffered so much from his mistakes… she put everything in her words and…

Damn it hurt. Every song hurt, because even the cheerful ones - and there were some happy songs, songs that actually made him smile - reminded him so much of them and those blissful months they had spent together, discussing books, music, movies, life, her cases…

It was all gone in the wind, though sealed in their blood and her songs.

One of them was a bit obscure though. Two actually. One ballad in the middle of the album and the last track. Those, he couldn't understand. At first he thought both of them talked about him, but that would be extremely narcissistic on his side and a bit boring on hers, and he knew she didn't write boring songs. Even the covers they made weren't boring. The cover EP they had recorded over the weekend last October was all but boring and he had loved them to death, and even those had a meaning, they weren't randomly chosen!

He had to do something. There was too much pain and suffering in that album to let it go. He had to apologize, he had to make sure she was OK.

In the letter she said that the lyrics of his new album hurt. Yes, there were some parts that described a character that had a similar role of hers in the main character's life. They were sparse, but they were there, and she knew how to find them.

He looked at the clock on the wall and sighed. Alexis was about to come home from school, if he hurried he could manage to shower and arrive at her place but… what if she was still at work?

Oh, he'd wait there. She deserved it. She had waited for him for a long time, he could wait for her for an afternoon until she came back from work.

A quick shower and he was out of the loft before Alexis arrived. He grabbed the latest printout of his new, yet untitled novel and walked to her apartment. It was a long way, but he had time to spare. The brisk, cold air coming from the ocean spurred him to walk faster, but it took him a while to get there nevertheless.

When he knocked on her door, he didn't expect Kate to be at home. Nor he expected her to come and open the door looking like she had just gone through hell and came back a moment before. The shocked look on her face startled him. "Castle, what are you doing here?"

"I…" Words stuck in his throat. "I wanted to talk… if you have a moment."

Kate looked around, as if she was waiting for someone to arrive in that moment. "Castle… listen… it's not a good moment right now. I…"

"Please Kate, let me explain. I… I made mistakes that hurt you and I'm here to apologize. Let me come in, for a moment."

Sighing, she nodded. "Make it quick though."

Kate opened the door and let him in her apartment, but she didn't show him inside. She kept him in the foyer. "So… what do you want?"

"You waiting for someone?" he asked.

She shook her head and he took a moment to observe her from head to toe. Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail, there weren't any traces of makeup and she was dressed in large, comfy sweats and thick gray socks. He wasn't used to seeing her like this. She looked tired, exhausted.

"No, I'm not waiting for anyone. I just want you to be gone. After all, you were the one that wanted me out of your life. I thought you had decided that after you didn't answer any of my calls."

Her voice was like a steel blade pushed right between his ribs. "Kate I… I'm sorry. I acted like an ass for months and I realized it too late. I thought you didn't want me anymore so I cowered and…"

"And?" she spurred him on, but that only had the effect to make him stammer.

"And… I don't know Kate… I've never been good with this kind of shit and… Please, try to understand. I lost my best friend and I have never been good at dealing with loss."

"And I lost my mentor in the most stupid way ever but I didn't turn to the bottle!" she almost shouted.

He ran his free hand through his hair. "Kate, please… can we just sit for a moment and talk like two adults? There's no need to shout. I will appeal my case, and if you're not convinced, I'll get away from your life forever but please… hear me out and…"

Someone started crying in the apartment. Somewhere down the corridor.

His breath caught in his lungs as he realized that was a newborn's cry.

He watched Kate become pale, then blush and then pale again as she rushed down the hallway. His muscles went rigid and he had to lean on the closest piece of furniture to stand. His stomach twisted and turned and he suddenly felt nauseated. The shrill intensified and he heard her voice trying to soothe the baby.

Her baby.

She had a child.

Damn.

When she returned to the foyer, she had a tiny bundle in her arms, wrapped in a light blue blanket.

"So that's why you wanted me gone," he whispered, the lump in his throat making it hard for him to speak properly. He didn't try to fight back the tears coming down, it was a lost battle.

"It's also why I tried to call you so many times for so long."

"What?"

"Rick… This is Gabriel Beckett Castle."

He felt like she had just shot him.

* * *

><p><em>Word Count: 2863 Total Word count: 31577<em>

_Highest word count I ever managed to achieve in such a short time. _

_Also: bet you didn't see that coming uh? Alex, my beta, didn't. And to Alessandra, AKA the best friend AKA the girl that constantly falls from the chair every time she reads something I wrote, I want the dorky selfie when you finish reading this one! _


	13. Chapter 13

_Author Note N. 1: for those who felt misleaed by the lack of the angst tag, I'm sorry. When I posted the story, I was wrongfully convinced I had added that tag. When I updated I just didn't look at that, I automatically did the updating procedure and never noticed the lack of tagging. I'm deeply sorry for anyone who has felt mislead by my mistake. I sincerely apologize for that. I'm correcting it right now. _

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13<strong>

Her words kept echoing in his brain as he processed what she had just said.

Gabriel Beckett Castle.

Castle.

Pieces of a puzzle he didn't even knew existed started rearranging right before his eyes as everything finally made sense. Kate had tried to call him about six weeks after the night at the party, when she discovered she was pregnant. With his child. Then again in the end of September, probably when she found out she was having a boy. He never answered one of those calls. She had sent letters throughout summer and he had just piled them and hid them from sight. He felt the urge to go home and read each one of those letters now, like a physical need.

He had rejected every single attempt she had made to reach out to him and let him know she was having a baby. Their baby. To the point she stopped trying and wasn't even intending to tell him after the baby boy was born. Just a message for Christmas.

She had given up on him because he had selfishly given up on her. He had waited too long and even the last chance he had was gone.

And now he was selfishly bursting back in her life while all she needed was time and rest. Taking care of a newborn was tough, he remembered that all too well. He had practically taken care of Alexis on his own when she was born, and he remembered every single day of it.

Slowly, he moved to stand up straight again. "Castle?"

"Yes, Castle. If you had picked the phone up just one time when I called or even open those letters I sent, you would already know you have a son," she stated, bitterly. "I tried to tell you. Multiple times. It looks like you didn't want to listen."

Shame weighed like a ton of steel on his head, so much he physically had to look down. He couldn't stand the accusing look in her eyes. And goddammit she had all the right to hate him.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, half heartedly, convinced she'd kick him out of her house as soon as she had the chance.

Kate sighed. "Well, with hindsight, I see you are. Go and make some coffee, we have a lot to talk about and I need to change him. Stuff is in the usual closet, you should remember where everything is."

With that, she left him in the foyer, dumbstruck and unable to move. She walked down the corridor again and disappeared in the room that was once her own study that she had probably converted in Gabriel's room.

It took him a minute to decide to move and he walked to the kitchen, working in complete silence to make them coffee. He could her gently talk to the baby boy as she changed his diaper, and the boy replying with meaningless sounds that were music to his ears. He chuckled, as he turned the coffee maker on, thinking about the time Alexis used to make the same cute noises. He leaned his forehead on the cabinet and sighed, before he shyly moved down the same hallway following the noises.

The first thing he noticed when he peeked inside the room, was that Gabriel was a tiny baby. Like, really, really tiny. Smaller than Alexis when she was born. Kate was tall, but she was tiny herself, and her hands dwarfed the baby as she maneuvered him around to put the clean diaper on him and secure it beneath the plain white onesie he was wearing. She touched him with delicate but sure gestures and the baby happily basked in every caress and every word she said. His tiny arms flayed around a little and Castle could see a happy, toothless smile on his face when Kate finally buttoned the onesie back up and put the small footed PJ pants on him, covering the lower part of his body. She then loosely wrapped him back in the cotton blanket and picked him up.

"Staring is creepy Castle. I told you long ago."

He shrugged. "Can't help it. Coffee should be almost ready by now, are you sure you want me to stay?"

"Yes Castle, no need to postpone this, we did it for too long by now. We have to talk, doing it now or tomorrow or next week won't change the fact that this is gonna hurt. Better do it now."

He nodded and followed her to the living room. He told her to go and make herself comfortable as he fixed their coffees. When he came back with the two mugs, he found her sitting crosslegged on the couch with Gabriel resting comfortably in the baby carrier on the coffee table in front of her, intently watching her as she talked nonsense to him. Not wanting to disrupt the moment of communication between mother and son, he walked around them and sat on the opposite side of the couch. "Here, I hope you still like the usual."

"Thanks." She took the cup from him and inhaled the steam. "And yes, I still like the usual, only I switched to decaf, no caffeine to disrupt him. So… what brings you here?"

He sat on the couch, holding the dark blue mug in his hands for a long moment, looking for the right words to start that conversation. He found none.

"I listened to your new album," he stated, calmly.

"Oh." Kate stirred the coffee in her cup, as if trying to think about something else. "And I listened to yours."

He nodded. "I know. I read your letter to Alexis, and before you start ranting about invading her privacy, I know and I feel like shit already for it. No need to twist the knife in the wound. It just made me realize that I have been a selfish prick all this time and that I owed you at least an apology."

"Took you long enough." Her words were bitter, but there was no scorn in her voice. She just sounded resigned.

"You know men are slow learners. I seem to be even slower than the average. So… I'm here to tell you that I'm deeply sorry for everything I've done and not done, because there are a lot of things I should have done but… I haven't and that's that. I don't expect you to forgive me and I don't want to impose my presence in your life. If you prefer to continue on your way without me, I understand and I'll make myself scarce. I just wanted you to know that… that I'm sorry. I should have listened to you."

"Yeah you should have. I'm not claiming to know everything about anyone but I've witnessed my fair share of addiction with Marie when we were teens and I know a couple of things about it."

"I know. And I should have listened to you right then. Not a week later after I woke up fully dressed in the bathtub drenched in cold water, with absolutely no recollection of what I had done in the past six days."

She shook her head. "Yes. Definitely. Alexis and Martha?"

"They're fine. They miss you. I take it they don't know about…"

"About Gabriel? No. After I found out I was pregnant I stopped seeing them. I wasn't strong enough to tell them."

Castle took a sip from his cup. "I see. They'll be thrilled, you know? Alexis always wanted a sibling."

Kate chuckled. "I don't really think she'd appreciate the fact I left her out of everything. I tried to call you, I sent you letters, which you didn't open I guess, I was even thinking of coming to the loft but when I finally made up my mind I was already showing and at that point I lost all the courage I had gathered," she explained. "I'm a coward, I know. My parents tried to make me contact you one more time when he was born, considering everything that happened and…"

"Why? What happened?" he inquired.

She took a deep breath and smiled when Gabriel made a bubble of spit and laughed when it burst.

"He was born prematurely. I should have reached full term tomorrow, but he was born in the morning of Christmas Eve. I've been desk bound all my pregnancy, the new Captain is a woman and she understood the issue right away so she cut my hours and made sure I had enough rest. She's a tough one, but hell she's a good Captain," she explained, toying with the brim of the mug in her hands. "I was still working when I started having contractions, I thought they were the Braxton Hicks type of contraction and went on with my work, then I felt this sudden wetness and I knew something was wrong. Gates, the new Captain, was passing by in that moment and took the situation in her hands. Less than five minutes later I was on the way to the hospital and she was calling my parents. After ten hours of doctors doing anything they could to stop labor he was there, small and weak but headstrong enough to be fastest preemie to go home. He stayed in the incubator for two days before doctors realized he didn't need it. An English neonatologist called him Boxing Day Miracle, because they decided to take him out of the incubator on Boxing Day. Still had to wait a while to take him home though, about a month."

"Shit…" he murmured, then covered his mouth with his hand. "Sorry… I shouldn't curse in front of him."

Kate laughed, softly. "He can't understand it yet, you can curse all you want. And believe me, the music he was subject to when I was pregnant with him was more than enough to make him immune to swearing and curses for the time being."

"It's not like you play children's music either with your band," he joked. "You named him Gabriel after…"

She nodded. "Yep. And my grandfather too. I just thought it fit. I had Come Talk To Me on a loop for days at a time and well…"

"I'm an idiot," he exclaimed, knowing perfectly well that Come Talk To Me was a song Peter Gabriel had written about his strained relationship with his eldest daughter, back around the time he was dealing with his divorce.

"Yes you are. You're a dork, an idiot and sometimes you know how to be a real asshole, but he's your son too. And you love Peter Gabriel as much as I do so I thought… what the hell, it's not a bad name."

"No, no absolutely, it's a great name it's just… nothing. It's nothing. He's perfect."

"He's healthy, if you want to know. Just small."

"How did you manage to record an album with him around?" he asked. He noticed that the baby boy turned towards him when he spoke, as if he recognized his voice. Did Kate listen to his music when she was pregnant to the point Gabriel already knew his voice?

"Two tranches," she explained. "Part of it was recorded in early July. The other part was recorded in November. Then we had an extra session about a month ago when we recorded a song I wrote after he was born, Beautiful With You. He was still in NICU but he was holding his own and I had enough time to record that."

"I had the feeling that song had a particular meaning behind it."

Kate smiled. "Yep. Break In is dedicated to him too. I wrote it after Lanie took the first ultrasound and I heard his heartbeat for the first time."

"Wait, your first ultrasound was performed by a medical examiner?"

"In the morgue, to be precise."

"OK now you've got to be kidding me. Come on!" he exclaimed. "You can't possibly be telling the truth, no one would ever have their first ultrasound performed by a medical examiner in a morgue. Don't tell me you were on an autopsy table!"

Kate nodded, hiding a smile behind her mug. "Oh yes, I was. And Lanie was more than professional and accurate doing it. It had been a while since she had a living patient, but she did it. She also managed to record it and print some pictures. I have the DVD if you want."

Castle waited a moment before replying to that, just because he marveled at how well they got along, even after so much had happened. They were talking like two civil adults, having an important conversation without being idiots. If he only had known they'd be actually able to do this, he would have come earlier.

"I think we're a bit beyond that stage now," he said, smiling as Gabriel turned towards him when he spoke. "How was your pregnancy? I mean, Alexis' mother used to have the worst morning sickness all day long in her first trimester but once she hit the second everything was just fine."

"Well, I wouldn't say it was a piece of cake, because it wasn't. More than morning sickness what I hated most was the fatigue. I was constantly tired, no matter how long I slept or how much I ate. Gates even allowed me to take naps in the breakroom and yet I was tired as fuck. That was terrible. Nausea? Piece of cake. I never threw up, not once. But damn after lunch I couldn't keep my eyes open."

"I'm sorry Kate…"

She chuckled. "It's past now. We're fine. We'll be fine."

"I bet you'll be. You're tough Kate, you're strong and I know you can do it." There was a long moment of silence before he spoke again. "I like the song you wrote about him."

"Which one?"

"Beautiful With You. I don't know… it's just you."

"You know, I wrote it when he was in NICU. After nearly a full day in the incubator, doctors saw he was stable enough they started the kangaroo care, you know the skin to skin contact thing for babies." He nodded. "I held him for hours and his vitals spiked up, he got better and better each minute we spent together. I held him with one hand and wrote with the other. It just sparked when my mother said I was even more beautiful holding him. I thought she was just being the overly doting mother, but as I held him I felt just…"

"Beautiful?" he prompted.

Kate nodded and gently touched Gabriel's outstretched fist. The baby boy wrapped his tiny fingers around her own and babbled a little more. The smile the appeared on her face blew his mind.

"I can see where that came from," he continued. "There's something different in you and I have to admit I'm kind of glad I have part of responsibility in causing this."

She rolled her eyes. "Jerk… Want to hold him?"

The proposition came out of nowhere. He thought she'd never allow him to hold the boy. "You sure?"

"What can I do? Keep you away from your son? I'm not that kind of person Castle. Go ahead and pick him up."

Shaking with excitement, he moved so he could pick the baby up. He still remembered how to hold a newborn, but the spark of electricity he felt run from his hands to his heart when he first held the seemingly weightless body and moved him to his chest felt like something completely new. He remembered something similar from the first time he held Alexis, but this time it was amplified. Maybe because he had discovered of his existence only thirty minutes before?

"Hey little man! How are you doing? You look pretty happy don't you?"

The baby squealed happily when Castle laid him on his broad chest. Gabriel's tiny hand fisted in the fabric of his t-shirt and he sighed, content with his new position. He slowly moved his neck so he was looking up at him, following his voice. "Hey there. Nice to meet you Gabriel. You seem to know me better than I know you already."

"He knows your voice. He heard it often. Your last album hurt but it was also really, really good. I loved every single song in it."

He sighed. "I'm sorry it hurt."

"And I'm sorry mine hurt you. Do you know if Alexis liked the song I wrote about her?"

He shook his head. "No idea. I just read the letter, listened to the album and rushed here. I sincerely have no idea what she thought about it."

"I'll have to ask her then. If I find the courage to face her, after all this time."

"Come at the loft with this little guy here and she'll be fine," he said, nuzzling the baby's head. "He's a charmer."

"Oh I know. You should see my dad. He's head over heels in love with him. I've never seen him crying, not once in the 32 years I've been on this planet."

He jolted a little bit in his seat when Kate mentioned her father. "How are your parents?" he asked, a bit apprehensive.

"My dad wants to tie your testicles to his car and just drag you around the city as he drives. My mom's just happy she has a grandchild, but I don't really think she'll be happy to see you. They liked you, you know?"

"I had that feeling. Listen Kate… Earlier, when I said that if you don't want me to stick around I can just get out of your life entirely," he said, and it hurt him to say those words now that he was holding his son, but he was sincere. "I was telling the truth. If you don't want me, I can just…"

Kate placed a hand on his arm, the same that was holding Gabriel upright against his chest. "Don't say that. I don't want you out, quite the contrary. I thought you didn't want me in your life, that's why I stopped trying."

"I was trying to get better. I hit rock bottom last year and I didn't want to be a burden for you. I've been working with a therapist ever since, I've considered checking into rehab multiple times but my therapist kept telling me it wasn't the right way. I had isolated myself for too long and I needed to slowly be reintroduced to society. Rehab clinics often let patience closed in their rooms, and it wasn't ideal for me."

"How are you now?" She sounded worried. Genuinely worried. "I mean… I don't want to imply that…"

"I'm sober. I've been sober since mid March."

She nodded. "Good. I'm happy to hear it."

"What do we do now?"

Kate chuckled. "You get to know your son, at least until he gets hungry, that's when I come in. As for later… we have… we have to talk. About a lot of things. Might as well talk in front of dinner, don't you think?"

"You're inviting me to stay?"

"For dinner. You can come tomorrow, if you want to come."

Castle looked down at Gabriel, already drowsy. "Yes, Kate. I want to."

"Then enjoy his company. I need a shower."

* * *

><p><em>Word Count: 3220 Total Word Count: 34797<em>

_Author Note N. 2: for those who felt this story took a sterotypical turn with last chapter, I'm perfectly aware of that. I needed something quick and easy to write for the ficathon so I took the easy way out. I'm keeping the good stuff fo the other AU I'm writing. With more time to write, I would probably have managed to pull something better out of this story but with roughly three weeks to write it and post it, I needed something easy. And as I have mentioned over PM to a reviewer, the original idea had Castle turn violent against Beckett. I think this solution works better. _


	14. Chapter 14

_Sorry for the delay, but Winter Break is filled with holidays here in Italy and family gatherings tend to swallow people like the Sarlaac Pit and I got swallowed too. Between family, friends, boyfriends and everything, I barely had the time to check the emails. I'm sorry. Anyway, Happy New Year to all of you, I wish you a great 2015 filled with joy and wonders!_

_Also, Fanfiction dot net is having some issues and the chapter seems to not work properly. I've uploaded it twice and twice it didn't work. I'm sorry for the inconvenience but it seems to be a widespread issue. I hope it will be resolved soon. If you receive multiple alerts for this chapter, I am truly sorry but those are all my attempts to make it work. Again, I'm deeply sorry._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14<strong>

They talked for a long time. At dinner and even after that.

They had heaps of things to talk about, and not only about them.

They had both been cowards, not wanting to risk more than the minimum necessary and that had affected them both in the most cruel way. They had issues, they knew it all too well. They weren't that great at sharing their experiences, they were both too proud and that made them even more reluctant to ask for help or even just sit down and do what they had just done that afternoon: talk. Those flaws, mixed up in an explosive concoction, had caused so much damage they couldn't even think about it.

They both knew it would have taken them a long while to come over all of this, to fix everything and mend what they had broken. Because Castle held only part of the responsibility, the rest was all Kate's. She knew she had to try harder, but with everything that had happened, she lacked the courage to go forth with her plans.

And she had blamed herself every day and night for not being strong enough, ever since she had discovered she was pregnant.

Facing those issues, all in one single afternoon, left them completely worn out. Gabriel hadn't helped at all, being overly excited by his presence. Castle stayed for dinner, which they spent trying to comfort one another, then helped her putting their son down.

He left only when Kate fell asleep on him once they had finally managed to put Gabriel to sleep in his crib, but only after he had made sure that Kate was safely tucked in her bed and not dozing off on the couch. She needed all the rest she could get, with a newborn to take care of, and the couch wouldn't just do. He forced her to go to sleep on her bed, before he quietly snuck out of her apartment.

That night, he slept like a baby. Literally. He woke up every two hours, eyes snapping wide open in the darkness as if a loud noise had woken him up. As if a baby was crying in his room.

His brain was tricking him, he knew it. The newfound paternity was playing tricks on his mind, making him think Gabriel was in the room instead of back at Kate's place, safe with his mother. Once he woke up again around four in the morning, he just stopped pretending he could go back to sleep and started working again on the new novel. He had left the first printout of the draft he was now editing at her place but they didn't have time to discuss it, as concentrated as they were on them and Gabriel. So much had been said that night, he still had to process everything

Writing, or better yet, going through his novel to look for inconsistencies and check what his editor had pointed out in the revisions relaxed him, it helped him keep his mind focused.

He edited the new novel, adding descriptions and dialogues here and there and completely rewriting a scene until he heard Alexis start moving in her room upstairs, getting ready for school.

At that point, he saved the document and shut the laptop off. He had worked enough. He met his daughter on the way to the kitchen. She was surprised to see him up and awake that early in the morning.

"'morning…" she murmured, sitting at one of the barstools at the counter.

"Good morning to you. Want anything special for breakfast?" he asked, opening the fridge.

"Nah, the usual will be fine. You? I thought you were staying out last night, since you were out for dinner."

"I was with Kate," he said.

Alexis' eyebrows shot up. "Kate as in Kate Beckett?"

He nodded. "Yes. Yesterday I decided to grab courage with both hands and finally go and apologize to her. I made a lot of mistakes last year and she suffered for them as much as you and your grandmother did. I owed her that much."

"You owe her more than a freaking apology Dad. She went through hell because of you and you kicked her out of your life with nothing more than a bat of your eye. I really, really hope she kicked your ass when she saw you, both metaphorically and literally."

He placed her bowl of cereal in front of her. "Don't worry. She did. And she's going to kick my ass some more today. And I deserve every kick I get, I know that perfectly well. We may be still in time to fix this before it's too late."

"You better. She's the best thing that happened to you. You've never had a girlfriend strong enough to put up with your crap through these years. Nor one that lasted that long. After Mom left you've turned into the golden goose of hard rock and I was tired to see you come home with airheaded groupies that didn't want much more than to fuck you just to brag about that with their friends. You deserved more than that and the moment you got it you blew it." He nodded, acknowledging her words as the pure and simple truth, and let her speak. "You hurt her. I suppose you listened to her CD because there's no other way you could have decided to go and face her on your own without some prompting and the letter she sent me wasn't on my desk yesterday."

"Listen Alexis… I…"

"Spare it Dad. You blew it, you fix it. For once in my life, after Mom left, you found someone I could relate to, someone I could be friends with and not only because I liked her band before I met her, but because Kate is awesome. She's a real person and is not afraid to show it and damn I miss her. And for fuck's sake Dad you knocked her up, you need to fix this as soon as you can."

That last sentence baffled him. "What? How do you even…"

The scolding look in her eyes froze him in his place. "Dad, please. I would have been blind not to notice. The last video they put on their YouTube account, with the acoustic session and that cover they made of Empire State Of Mind? Please! She was already showing. Also, a month after the party at the label she stops seeing us, with the lamest excuses ever. I'm young, not stupid."

Castle opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't find words to reply to that simple statement. His daughter was smarter than him. More perceiving. And he couldn't say anything about it.

"If I made my calculation right, she should give birth to my brother or sister anytime."

He shook his head. "He was born on Christmas Eve," he replied.

"He?"

"Yes, he. Gabriel Beckett Castle. He was born on Christmas Eve, prematurely, but held his own just fine and got better in less time than expected. He's perfectly fine now. Just a little tiny." He pulled his phone out and showed her a picture he had snapped when the boy was peacefully sleeping in his carrier, after dinner. "There he is. He's a cute little charmer. I'll take more pictures today, hopefully when he's awake."

"I hope so. How's Kate?"

"Tired. A little overwhelmed. Yesterday she fell asleep right after dinner, a minute after I managed to make him sleep."

Alexis shook her head "Go Dad, she needs you. And try and bring her back here, I'd really love to meet my brother."

He leaned closer to her and kissed her forehead. "I will try anything I can. Maybe you can drop by after school, you remember where she lives, don't you?"

"Unannounced? No way. You just go and stay with her. I'll take care of Grams."

"God, what did I do to ever deserve such a wonderful child?" he wondered, aloud.

She rolled her eyes, just like Kate did. "And what did I ever do to deserve such a jerk for a father? Go, your seventeen year old daughter can take care of herself. Your six week old son can't, and I bet his mother just craves your help."

And with that, he was out.

Gabriel let her sleep a little longer that morning, after he woke at four for his nightly feeding. As she slowly walked around the apartment to make the boy fall asleep again, she noticed a manila envelope on the small table beside the front door. Balancing her son with one arm, she picked up the thick package and looked at its contents. The front page read _Richard Castle - Untitled Manuscript._

Castle had it in his hands when he had arrived the day before.

It was still on the same table, where all her keys lay, that morning, as she drowsily carried Gabriel towards the kitchen after having fed and changed him. He happily chirped as he gnawed on his hand, and he squealed loudly when she put him down in his carrier.

"Hey, give mommy a break," she murmured, kissing his forehead. The look of pure bliss on his face after that simple touch made her heart burst with joy.

She eyed the coffee maker and sighed. "God, I so need coffee this morning." Then she proceeded to prepare it. As the desired beverage was brewed, she took the manuscript and placed it on the kitchen table. Curiosity took hold of her and she flipped the first two pages, filled with hand-written side notes in red ink, and started reading the first chapter.

And she went on reading for a long while, after her coffee was ready. One hand moved the pages, the other lazily played with Gabriel as he sat there, happy to feel his mother's touch constantly on him. He was such a quiet baby, almost as if he was making up for the mess he had made when he had come to this world. Kate couldn't be happier about her quiet, calm son that rarely fussed.

The novel was clearly still in the draft stage, there were inconsistencies here and there, some typos that had been marked by the editor with red circles, the characters were still a little paper-thin here and there, but the story was engaging. And the cop-by-day-rocker-by-night protagonist? Castle needed to learn how to be a little more subtle. But the description of the still unnamed protagonist as she played on the stage of a small club with her rock band made her smile. It sounded just like how he had described her one afternoon as they lazily killed time cramped in his bunk on the tour bus while waiting for the technicians to finish their job so they could do the soundcheck. It was incredibly sappy but still totally flattering and it had helped her boost her mood after a long, sleepless night she had spent over writing a new song that turned out to be a complete failure.

Until he came in a couple of days later and added a power chord in the riff and Love Bites was born.

"Hey buddy, do you think I have to credit your father for that little chord?" she asked Gabriel. The baby looked at her with a dopey, toothless smile that made her chuckle. "Oh well, I guess I'll ask him when he comes by." A little drop of drool appeared in the corner of his mouth and she quickly wiped it away with a small, plush towel she always kept at hand. "You're not supposed to look so much like you're father already, you know that?"

Right on cue, she heard a soft knock on the door. "Who might that be?" she said, picking up the baby. When she opened the door, Castle's shocked look made her jolt on her feet. Gabriel squealed in response. "What's that face for?"

"Alexis knows about Gabriel."

And then she was mirroring his shocked expression. "What do you mean, she knows?"

"I don't know how she figured it out. She said something about you not wanting to meet her about a month after the party and… sorry, can I come inside? It's kind of cold."

She gave him a double take before she opened the door and let him in. "Oh, sorry. Sure, come in. Coffee's still warm, if you want some."

He shook his head as he shimmied the heavy coat off his shoulders, followed closely by the thick scarf. "No thank you. I swear to Cthulhu, she figured it out by herself. She mentioned a video you posted on YouTube months ago, said that you were already showing."

She rubbed her free hand on her face. "Damn… I know it was a bad idea. And now?"

"She wants to see you and meet her brother. Nothing more. And she wants me to fix this because she misses you."

"She misses me?"

He nodded. "Yes, she does. And so does my mother. Why don't you come over for dinner? They'll be thrilled to see you, and Gabriel."

"Castle, it's barely nine in the morning, can't we talk about it later?"

He raised his hands, defensively. "Alright, I just wanted to lay down our options for today. So, what do you want to do?"

She hastily handed him their son. "You take him for a moment. He spit up on me twice last night and I seriously need a shower. Make yourself comfortable, then I have something to ask you about a song."

With that, she moved towards the bathroom, not entirely happy when she noticed Castle was following her. As she set everything in the bathroom, he stopped on the door and leaned on it. "Which song?"

"Love Bites." She took the sweatshirt and tank top she wore and threw them in the laundry basket. "Remember when you helped me with writing it?" He nodded. "Do you want the credit for it?"

He chuckled, mindlessly playing with Gabriel's fist as it was wrapped around his finger. "Sincerely, I don't give a damn about the credit. I just added a chord in the riff, that's all. You would have got there by yourself, with time."

"Thanks. Oh, by the way… you left your book here yesterday."

"Oh, I know. I left it here on purpose."

Kate thought she had heard his words wrong, muffled by the running water. "What?"

"It was supposed to be my _sorry I'm an asshole and I want to apologize for all the pain I caused_ present. Way better than a Hallmark card, don't you think? Ouch… hey Gabe, let go of Daddy's finger! Damn, he's toothless but he bites!"

"First, don't call him Gabe, second yes, I know. Go tell my boobs about his bites. And about the book, yes, damn better than a Hallmark card. Got any ideas for the name of the protagonist?" she asked.

"Yes, it's in the new draft. Nikki Heat."

Kate pulled the curtain of the shower, not really caring that she was naked and had suds in her hair. "That's a stripper name!"

Castle shrugged. "It's just a character Kate, even Derrick Storm had a stupid name."

"You didn't base Derrick on me! Dare to put Gabriel in the novel and I swear I'll…"

"No, he'll stay out of it. As much as Alexis always stays out of the press. And the novels. I occasionally write a character after my mother or some friends, but they are all minor characters. But come on! It's also an amazing rock star name!"

"For the glam era maybe!" She stepped out of the shower and Castle promptly handed her the bathrobe. "I don't exactly want that book to turn into a weird version of Rock Of Ages."

"You'd be so good in the Broadway cast of that musical…" he whispered, as if he felt ashamed of that thought. "Don't you think, buddy?"

Gabriel squeaked, then yawned. "Mmh… he looks kind of tired."

Kate looked at her son then shook her head. "Nah, more likely he's hungry. This rugrat didn't eat much for breakfast and decided to let Mommy sleep until seven this morning," she leaned closer to him and kissed his nose, earning another squeal. "Let's see if he falls asleep or starts crying."

"Yesterday he didn't look much of a fussy baby."

Kate wrapped her long hair in a towel. "He isn't. As long as I'm quick enough and he gets to eat when he wants. Come, there's more I wanted to talk about."

Later that morning, with Gabriel fed and fast asleep in his crib, they were sitting each on a corner of the couch, enjoying a cup of tea to ward off the harsh, cold wind that battered New York outside.

"...and then I saw that picture of you with that blonde at a coffee shop and wrote Bet U Wish U Had Me Back."

He chucked. "You didn't need to be jealous about that woman."

"I wasn't jealous, just… disheartened."

"She's my therapist by the way. She has rather uncommon techniques to make people realize how messed up they were. That day she was trying to reintroduce me to crowded environments. I kind of developed a form of agoraphobia that makes me scared of crowded places. She took me to that particular coffee shop because at that hour it's crowded but not unbearably so."

Her face darkened. "Oh. So it was part of the…"

Castle nodded. "Of therapy, yes. She thinks I was traumatized by the press conference and my subconscious reacted that way. Once I had a panic attack in the middle of her waiting room because of another person waiting there."

"That bad?" she asked.

"Well… fortunately, it stopped pretty soon after she brought me there. Well, not exactly stopped, I still feel uncomfortable in crowded places, but it's more controllable now. It has to be, otherwise I'd have to completely give up on my job and I absolutely don't want to. I poured parts of that feeling in the story I wrote for the new album, particularly in Tired."

"And I thought that song was about me."

"There are no songs about you in that album. It's a story I wrote after I went through all the shit I wrote down while smashed drunk. I had a bunch of notepads in my room and when I woke up I found them scattered around, completely filled with notes, tales, short stories, drunk gibberish and other stuff. My therapist told me to look around those notes and there I found the inspiration to write the story of the album. Albums. The second part is coming out in August. I see you found your inspiration in me being an asshole."

She shrugged. "Not only in that, there are songs about stupid boys and one about a woman I arrested," she explained.

"Which one?"

"I Miss The Misery. I wrote it after I had to arrest a woman that had killed her husband after years of abuse. We thought it was a random vehicular manslaughter, but she did it on purpose. And she surrendered after a week, while we were ready to close it as a car accident with no evidence to support further investigations when she came to the precinct and confessed to the crime. She said she didn't miss him, but she missed the misery of being with him. I thought it was…"

"Awful? Terrible? Horrible? Magnificently despicable?" he prompted.

Kate shook her head, and ran her hands through her now dry hair. "No, I thought it was just sad. Being so used to someone treating you like shit that you start actually miss the feeling? That's just sad. Also, I have the music for a power ballad ready, but no lyrics. Wanna help me with that?"

"Only if you promise to come home with me tonight. At least for dinner, I won't ask you to stay the night, even if I still have all of Alexis' gear from when she was a baby."

"OK for dinner. As for staying the night, we'll see."

"I'm OK with that."

On and off they worked all afternoon, Kate at the piano and Rick with one of her guitars. She had already the bulk of a song ready, but with Rick's help as a wordsmith, they managed to come up with a nearly completely polished song. As they wrote the lyrics, they came to talk about them more, how they spent the last year or so, how they coped and everything.

In two days, they felt like they had covered every issue between them, over music. They came to terms with the fact that they both had made many mistakes during that time, most of all with their complete inability to share their issues with one another, and that they were still in time to mend everything, to make everything better, for all of them. Everything before Gabriel's ever watchful eye and occasional cry of hunger or need for attention. That kid loved physical contact just as much as his father did. They both hoped that with time he'd develop his mother's independence and strength, because that way he'd just be the perfect child.

When Alexis called, around five in the evening, to ask if he was coming home for dinner, Kate decided it was time for the teen to meet her baby brother, and that she herself owed Alexis an apology. It was time they both stopped being cowards and faced what they had done. And what they hadn't done.

As Castle turned the key in its hole, he put a hand on Kate's shoulders and smiled. "Welcome home."

* * *

><p><em>Word count: 3628 Total Word Count: 38425<em>

_It's not over. Yet. Two more chapters and I'm done. I'm just slowing down. I've got exams coming up in January and believe me, I have a whole bunch of books to study on. Damn the day I enrolled in Chemistry And Polymeric Materials at university. _


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Before he turned the key to open the door, Kate felt a big lump forming in her throat. "Wait Castle, are you sure this is the right thing to do? I mean… Alexis is already…"

"I told you, she knows. She knew before me, you'll be fine with her. I'd be more worried about your parents than my mother and daughter."

She nodded. "Oh, that's for sure." She looked down at Gabriel, who sat peacefully in his carrier, practically immobilized by the thick clothes they had wrapped him in to fight the cold February wind. He looked marveled by the new things he had just seen, like the cab ride and the new surroundings. "Let's get inside. Like pulling a band aid."

"That's the Kate Beckett I fell in love with, taking the world by storm." With that, he turned the key and opened the door wide. "Mother, Alexis…" he called, loudly. "We're here."

Kate heard Alexis yelling on the way downstairs, way before she could hear the thumping of her run in the corridor and the staircase. The young redhead came down rushing and landed squarely in her arms, hugging her so tightly it cut the air from her lungs.

"I'm so happy you're here Kate…" she was crying. And Kate had become quite easy to tears herself after Gabriel was born. Thanks fucked up hormones…

"It's good to see you Alexis," she replied, wrapping her free arm around the teenager and holding her just as tightly. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you too," then she looked down and smiled. "And I think it's time this boy and I get to meet each other."

"Who are you talking about?" asked Martha, coming from the kitchen. "Oh dear, Katherine! It's so good to see you!"

Alexis knelt and unbuckled the safety belts that kept Gabriel in place and picked her baby brother up. "This cute little thing, Grams."

Martha's double take was impossible to miss. As the baby squealed and babbled while Alexis held him tightly against her chest, his still unknowing grandmother walked forward. "Oh my… now I see why you stopped seeing us." Her voice was soft and understanding, but there was an undertone of scorn, beneath it all, that Kate couldn't just ignore.

If Castle and herself had many things to explain each other and were still working on them, she had even more things to tell them. Alexis and Martha deserved more than just _I'm sorry_. She couldn't get away with all the damage she had done to them with so little effort.

"Martha, I'm sorry…"

She shook her head and raised one hand to touch her shoulder. "With due time dear. I'm sure you had your own good reasons to keep him for yourself. And I'm quite sure my son has just as much explaining to do to us as you do. For now, let me get acquainted with this charmer."

"His name's Gabriel, Mother."

"Lovely name dear. Why don't you take off your coats and his and get comfortable? I really hope you're up for pizza tonight."

"Always up for pizza, Martha. With him around, more than ever."

They spent the evening going through the major issues that still plagued them. Martha and Alexis listened closely to every word Kate said, and while the teenager seemed more keen to forgive her, Martha looked a bit more scorned and less inclined to let it go. Not that she could be blamed for it, she had all the rights and good reasons to hate her for keeping her grandson from her. Kate hadn't come that night to expect full amnesty for her crimes no, that didn't even cross her mind, but she wasn't ready to face the fact that Alexis seemed so happy about having her back in her life, with Gabriel in tow. She had expected her to be more critical about her actions, just like Martha, but instead she was more than understanding.

Later, while she was quietly feeding Gabriel in the living room, with Martha and Castle doing the cleaning, they had some time to talk.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" she asked, silently approaching the couch from the side.

"Sure, sit down and ask away. I'm pretty sure you have a lot of things to ask."

Alexis nodded and sat on the armchair beside the couch. "First and foremost, thank you for coming tonight. It must have cost you a lot."

"Not much actually. Your father can be pretty convincing when he wants to."

"Oh, I know. What I meant though is that you've been practically shoved out of Dad's life and with everything that happened… I know about your Captain and Dad told me that Gabriel was born prematurely. You've had a lot to deal with in the last year, Dad's addiction included, and coming here tonight not knowing what our reaction could be, that took a lot of courage."

Kate shook her head. "No courage, just the fact that I love you and your grandmother and your father. And to be honest, one day or another I would have come even without your father asking me this morning."

"Really?"

"Yep. That letter I sent you with the rough mix of the new album… that was only the first step of me trying to get back in touch with you. The original plan had me coming here for Christmas, but this little guy here had other plans."

"You could have called when you were at the hospital."

"Don't I know that? My mother tried every trick up her sleeve to convince me, but I was so scared…" with the hand not occupied with holding Gabriel, she fished for her phone in her pocket. With quick flicks of her thumb, she found a few pictures she had taken when he was barely hours old, closed in the incubator while his vital signs were still too low. "I haven't told your father yet but it was my fault he was born so early. We had a tough case going on, and although I was desk bound, I wasn't exactly taking it easy at the time. I had contractions for hours before my water broke and there was nothing doctors could have done to stop labor. If I had been more careful and alert he wouldn't have been born so early." Alexis took the phone and flipped through the pictures, gasping when she saw the first few ones where her little brother was hooked up to so many wires and tubes she could barely make out his shape. "They didn't know if he was going to live at first. And I was so scared to let your father and all of you down for not being able to protect him that I just couldn't force any of you to come by and just possibly witness his slow death."

"You called me though. On Christmas. You sounded happy."

"My mom dialed the number. She forced me to talk at least to you, she was trying to force me to tell you about him. The doctors had just declared Gabriel was nearly out of the woods and that he looked like he would make a promising recovery, so I was indeed happy. You should have seen her face when I ended the call without telling you. She was furious."

Alexis laughed. "I would never want to see your mother angry. Not even mildly disappointed, to be honest."

"Oh, she's not that bad. If you hate the phrase _I told you so_ though don't even try to piss her off. She just loves to say it. But seriously, she's not so bad. She just looks like she could murder you and come out of the trial completely unscathed."

Alexis laughed. "That's what scares me about your parents."

"Dad's in corporate law, not penal. He's more for that kind of thing, Mom's the one for making up grand speeches to defend her clients. She improvised one too when I told her I was pregnant with him and that I didn't want to tell your father, even though I had been trying to call him for weeks at that point, and even sent him at least ten letters."

The teen looked down at Gabriel, still nursing contently. "Our dad's an idiot."

"Even his mom. We're big fat idiots. And we know it."

She shrugged. "I don't think you're idiots. I know my Dad can be an idiot sometimes, but I think he was just scared. I mean, he took Damian's death hard, that's clear. And he's never been good at dealing with these kinds of things. But when he hit the bottom he was smart enough to see how low he had gone and was able to get out of it. He asked for help, and he did it all because of what you said to him."

Kate sighed. "Still this whole thing looks like a poorly written soap opera, straight out of Temptation Lane."

"Yeah, a little bit. But sometimes even cheesy soap operas have roots in reality. I mean… that's human nature, right? When we are scared, we run. You and Dad, you were both scared, for different but valid reasons, and you ran away."

"Yeah, I know that, but this still looks like poorly written fiction. Speaking of merrier and hopefully, better written lyrics, did you like the album?"

She nodded. "Every single song of it, even though it stills sounds a little rough. And that song you wrote about me and my perspective of concerts? Just. Freaking. Amazing. Now tell me, how many songs have you written about Dad?"

"Quite a few. But there two written about your brother though. And we wrote one today, or at least the partiture for piano and guitar."

Alexis groaned. "Seriously, with everything you had to talk about today, you wrote a song?"

"It's exactly about what we had to talk about. Your Dad also came up with the most amazing line: _I'm not doing time this is not the scene of a crime._"

"With you, that's just perfect indeed. You said about it's about your issues?"

Again, Kate nodded. Yes it is. You see, when your father was drinking his life away, last year, I had this feeling that even though we were intimate and he knew pretty much everything about me, he never bared his heart to me, not once. He'd let out tidbits about his past and his feelings, but he wasn't able to talk about them."

"Well, you just described Dad from head to toe."

"Yep. Also, your dad has a wall, or at least a protective padding around his heart. I have it too, but I know when to let it down. Your dad can't, or at least doesn't want to. There's a line for that too, _we get naked but I can't undress your heart_."

"Can't wait to listen to that song."

"Why don't you come to rehearsal with us? Or at least when we record it. It would mean a lot to me, and I think your father will be happy too."

In that moment, Castle walked in the living room with a small tray in his hands. The wonderful smell of hot chocolate filled the room as he placed three mugs on the coffee table in front of them. "How are my favorite girls?"

"And boy," said Alexis, picking her mug. "We're fine Dad, we're just discussing what happened in the last few months. And the song you wrote this afternoon."

"You told her about _Private Parts_?"

"Really Dad? The song is called Private Parts?"

Kate shrugged, smiling. "Hey, Undercover Job have a reputation of double obscene meanings in their songs, we have to keep up with it. Did you know the original name was _Undercover Handjob_?"

Alexis nearly drowned. "Now I do. Seriously?"

"Oh yes. We had to change it because it was just too much. But… who cares."

"Yep, who cares," said Castle. "How's the little tyke doing?"

"He fell asleep. Sometimes he still nurses while sleeping, so I don't want to pull him away just yet, in case he's still hungry and wants some more."

"Can't blame him," he replied, behind his cup.

"DAD?" Alexis nearly yelled.

"Oh Alexis please I've said worse than that. Now, to the important stuff. It's getting late and it's snowing. I fear you're stuck here."

"You said you still have Alexis' crib and bedding, right?" asked Kate.

"Yes, it's in the crawl space, in its original box," replied Alexis. "I saw it a couple of months ago looking for stuff for a school project. If Dad's willing to help me, we can take it down and have it set up in less than an hour."

"On it. Come on, let's give the tyke a comfy bed to sleep in."

* * *

><p><em>Word count: 2144 Total Word Count: 40569<em>


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue - Walk With Me**

It took them months to slowly, really slowly, reintroduce Castle into Kate's life. Months he spent under close surveillance from both her band and her parents. Even Marie, knowing the whole story, asked Kate to pass her Castle on the phone just to bite his head off with insults. He had patiently listened to everything derogatory her friends and family had to tell him, he even accepted being hit by Jay's drumsticks twice when he walked in their rehearsal space for the first time after a year. The three guys practically formed a wall around Kate and Gabriel, even while she tried to tell them that everything was fine and he was there for a good reason and that they both had things to explain.

her bandmates calmed down only when they presented them the lyrics and the music sheet of the song they wrote together. When they read through the lyrics, they realized things had changed and even though they weren't back to normal, to before Damian's death, they were on their way. Only then they sat down in a circle and started throwing in ideas to fill the empty spaces of that song, that for now only had a score for the piano and the guitar, lyrics and a vocal line.

But most of all, he had listened her parents' tirade when Kate had decided to tell them he was back in her life. Castle had bravely sat at their kitchen table, hands in his lap and head down like a teenager caught skipping school, as they practically insulted him in every possible way without using curses, jargon or anything that could even remotely sound offensive. And as lawyers, they were good at it.

"I don't even understand how my daughter can take you back in her life after everything you've done to her," snapped Jim at some point, fuming with rage.

Castle felt like a bag of bricks had been thrown to his face. Jim was right. Utterly and unmistakably right. But an unexpected savior came to him, in the person of Johanna Beckett.

"Jim, calm down for a moment." Up to that moment, she had only been a scolding but silent figure, sitting beside her husband, throwing random looks between him and her daughter as she held her grandson, who sat beside him. "Why don't you ask your daughter why she decided he was worth it? She's here after all."

Jim shook his head. "Well now, let's hear it then."

Kate could only tell them the bare truth. "Because I love him. And because in the last two weeks he's been more important to me and Gabriel than I had ever imagined. He's even ready to give up a very remunerative tour to take care of him and allow me to go back to work, next month."

Her father let out a low groan, crossing his arms at his chest. "Well that's a bit unexpected, I have to say it. But what else has he done?"

"He's sober, Dad. He's been for almost a year now. He has weekly sessions with his therapist and attends AA at least twice a week. More if he finds the time. Because he's seen how much he's hurt people and he's now trying to fix his mistakes. And don't think I'm not to be blamed for what happened, because it's equally my fault that he wasn't involved in my pregnancy and Gabriel's first six weeks. It was my fault too."

Only when she admitted she was to blame for part of that mess, her parents softened their stances towards Rick. He tried to present himself as a meek man that only wanted the best for their daughter and their grandson, but the shadow of the past year loomed over him like a vulture. The proverbial monkey on his shoulder, though now gone and kept at bay, still made sure that its presence was felt in every room he entered. No wonder things were a little strained with their families. It all settled though when Martha and Alexis invited Jim and Johanna over for dinner the night before Kate went back to work. From then on, things were a lot smoother.

He had come to think that his newest novel and the new character based on their daughter had helped things go a little bit better too. Nikki Heat, despite the stripper name of the main protagonist and the whiskey inspired name of his own alter ego, was a three hundred page love letter to their daughter, they couldn't deny it. And his fans appeared to like it too: sales were through the roof, he gained a lot of additional readers interested both in the mystery and the music underworld of underground music in New York, but most of all, the love story was so compelling people just fell in love with it and became shippers not even knowing what shipping meant.

Her parents were no exceptions. Johanna, a fan of his novels just as her daughter, loved it to the point she demanded an autographed copy.

Yet, Martha had been as severe on her son as the Becketts were. Maybe more. Before things started getting a little bit more normal, they actually got more tense, at least between her and Castle. As the mother of a troublemaker, she had swallowed a lot, but this one was just too big and bitter, so right after both Kate and Gabriel fell asleep, she basically locked her son in the laundry room to speak to him.

"Richard Alexander Rogers renamed Castle what the hell have you done?"

He sighed. "Mother, I know. You don't need to..."

"I don't need to what, Richard? This is not something the man I raised would do. You left that woman alone for nearly a year! After you got her pregnant."

"And now I'm trying to make things better!"

"And you really think this is going to bring back things as they were?"

"Not as they were. I want to make things better than they were! Kate and I have a chance Mother! Another chance! How many alcoholics that completely blew it can say the same?"

Martha sighed. "Not many, I think."

"Right, not many. We have a second chance. I have a second chance and I'm not going to blow this one too. I love her too much to hurt her more than I already did."

Martha wasn't exactly happy with it, but she didn't reply. Things were tense for a couple of days more, until she saw how he acted around both Kate and Gabriel, all giddy and careful and so full of love that it almost melted her heart. At that point, she decided to just let it go, after all her son was a fully grown man more than capable to take responsibility for his actions. Or non-actions in some cases.

As Kate went back to work, Castle took more responsibilities with Gabriel, taking care of him day and night like he had done with Alexis when she was a baby. His daughter embraced her role as big sister in full, sometimes coming to help the two tired parents with a fresh set of eyes, ears, and arms that weren't tired from holding the growing baby for long periods of time. Her ability to sooth him left them astounded, most days she came back from school, let her bag fall on the floor near the front door and walked straight towards her distraught father that was trying to put a very fussy Gabriel down for his nap. Silently, Alexis had taken her baby brother from their father's arms and placed him against her right arm, on his belly. His ear-piercing cries quieted almost immediately, much to Castle and Beckett's astonishment.

"What?" she had asked then. "I saw Grams doing it the other day!"

Alexis proved to be important even for matters other than her brother. She was the first one to point out that Kate keeping her apartment was stupid, since as of early June she had practically moved in the loft. Martha had promptly jumped in the conversation asking if she could go and live at her place. To give them more space, she said. In reality, it was closer to her acting school and she had never been an early riser, that's why she wanted that place so bad.

And Alexis was also the source of the original idea for the video of Private Parts. She practically wrote a mini-script for it, to the point they let her direct the whole thing. Well, co-direct it. She was still underage and formally couldn't do it on her own, but she got credited for the original idea all the same.

When Undercover Job's new album was released, in the middle of July, they also released a statement that officialized Castle and Beckett as a couple, while still withholding the fact that they had a son. The media went ballistic with it, much of the press duty they had had to do revolved around them as a couple to the point that one day, during a roundtable held right before the release of the second part of the new album of Rising Storm, Castle got so fed up with the annoying journalists and took the microphone and let out a bitter rant about it.

"Let me make it clear to all of you dumbfucks who keep harassing me and my partner about our relationship: yes, we're together. Yes, we live together. Yes, we had a rough time when Damian died but we're going strong. Now, if you please, there are more important and appropriate things to discuss here than my relationship status, right?"

"Then why are you not going on tour after the release of this album?" asked an unidentified voice from the back of the room.

"Because we as a band decided not to go on tour for the next couple of years," interjected Jim, stealing the mic from Castle's hand. "Many of us have a family, my own wife is expecting and we're kind of getting old." The crowd laughed. "Going on tour is exhausting and even if it's extremely rewarding and fun, we've got fun and rewards even for being husbands, fathers and sons. Also, in the light of Damian's death, a still raw wound that hurts us all, we have decided to take a step back and do something else. Richard is working on the Gallows album and I have a new project on the way myself. That's why we're not going on tour."

Always the diplomatic one, Jim the Giant saved Castle from a rough, insensitive reply that could have probably given them more to speculate on.

"Thanks Jim," he muttered when Gina took the microphone from him.

The guitarist smiled beneath the thick beard and patted him on his back. "No problem mate."

With so much time at home alone with a baby that rarely got fussy and that as he grew up became more and more capable of entertaining himself, Castle had indeed started working on the new Gallows album. His brain was literally vomiting ideas for songs and lyrics, he spent most of the time with a pen in his hand writing both lines and music sheets. He juggled formula and bottles and guitars as if he had always done that, for all of his life. He never got tired, and even when Kate came home from work after long hours spent chasing down murderers, she always found him still sprinting and doing things all around the house.

One night, when she came home utterly destroyed by the murder she had just closed, Castle was all chirpy and happy, swiftly preparing dinner while writing down notes on the notepad he always kept at hand. Not to mention that he was also feeding Gabriel, who contently sat in his highchair listening to his father signing random notes while composing. She was exhausted and after having woken up at six AM with her, he was still ready to sprint.

"Castle, tell me the truth: are you using amphetamines or something?" she had asked, crashing on the couch, face down.

His laugh echoed in the loft. "No Kate, I'm just exhausted as you are, I'm just better at hiding it."

She joined him in his laugh, the chirpy sound muffled by the pillows. "You know my parents would be more than happy to take him for a day and let you rest?"

"I'd be miserably moping around the loft. I'm fine Kate, this not any harder than anything I've done in my life. I've already gone through the process of composing, writing a novel and parenting once. I can do it again," he told her. "Look at Alexis, I think she turned out fine after all."

"Yeah well... sometimes I wonder who's the parent and who's the child, but whatever. So, what are we having for dinner?"

Later that year, when they deemed Gabriel was old enough they decided it was time to tour again. They had time, resources and Beckett's Captain had warmed enough to the idea of letting her best detective go on non-paid leave for nearly five months for the quickest and most random world tour ever. Rising Storm and Undercover Job reunited again.

After exactly three years, in April 2013, they set off for a short national tour and then again in Europe, almost repeating the same steps they had taken in 2010 with less stops in between major dates, only to conclude with a back-to-back performance at Wacken Open Air. They had tried that experiment about two weeks before at Metaldays, the new moniker of Metal Camp, with Undercover Job literally jumping offstage to allow Rising Storm to start playing right away, no soundcheck needed. Initially, the crowd had been a bit stunned by their stunt, but after a moment of not knowing what to do, the moshing crowd had started getting restless again. To Kate, playing on the first, huge stage of a festival like that was amazing. Playing on the mainstage of Wacken was just the best. After that, she could just hang the guitar to the wall, she had arrived where she wanted.

Not to mention that they got to perform Private Parts together on both occasions. That meant a lot to her, maybe more than playing at Wacken itself.

But as they came back to New York, she noticed something was worrying Castle. He spent a lot of time scribbling on the same stained piece of paper. One night, as she came home late from work, she caught him watching Rock Of Ages with Gabriel sleeping on his chest and decided to approach the problem.

"Is everything alright?" she asked, bluntly.

"Yeah, why?"

"You've been a little bit too lost in your thoughts lately. And I've seen how you look at that lyric you wrote. You keep that sheet always with you. What's going on?"

He pulled the mentioned piece of paper out of his pocket. "This? Oh, this is only the first song of the new Gallows album. I'm just... trying to make it right."

"You want some help?"

He shrugged, and Gabriel sighed. "You already have to go through Marie's lyrics. And you're composing your stuff too. I can do it, it's just that... I don't know. I even recorded a rough demo the other day but I think there's something wrong."

Kate took his hand and gently pulled it towards her, taking the paper from his fingers. "Let me take a look at it."

A month later they were ready to record. The Gallows were going to record a new album after six years of total silence, not even a tour. Nothing. Damian's death practically compelled them to write new songs. Ideas flew back and forth the States via email like a river and their fifth album was ready to be rehearsed and recorded by the end of October. In December, it was ready for mixing. Only that song that worried Castle so much was withheld, as they wanted to work a little more on it. They were basically bashing their heads on the wall trying to figure that song out. And Gina was threatening them to publish the album without that song.

Only, that song was about Castle's grief about Damian's death and it could not be pulled out of the album, as the whole thing revolved about the band's feelings around the loss of their friend and mate.

They couldn't allow Gina to forcibly publish the album without that song. Only, she could. She had the rights, they had signed the contract that allowed her to publish all the material deemed finished.

Again, Kate came to the rescue one afternoon. She was sitting on the couch in the corner of the recording room playing with Gabriel when her son started taking his shoes and socks off. That made an idea spark. "Guys, why don't you simply strip it down? Low ambience sound, vocals, drums maybe, but put the accent on the feelings. This is a sad song, it deals with pain, fear, grief... strip it down, make it cold, take off anything unnecessary."

Castle started calling her deus ex machina from that moment on. She even had the idea of making a complete makeover of the masks. They had grown from the last time, and even the characters they portrayed on stage had evolved with them. Those masks didn't represent them anymore. They needed a radical change.

In May 2014, when they released the new album, everything was ready. They were ready to go back on the road, changed of course, but with the recent events, they felt like this new path they had taken was sort of a catharsis. First show, Madison Square Garden. Sold out ten days after pre-sale started.

The importance of the moment was epic. First time on stage after so long, after so much had happened... they were nervous like the first time. They were wrecks, even Robert, Undercover Job bassist promoted faceless turnist for The Gallows. He didn't have to go on stage, he would be playing from the backstage. In Damian's place, his bass, his amp and his mask.

A few minutes before the show, Castle was pacing around the side of the stage, jittery and nervous. The black jumpsuit and the creepy mask in his hand made him look like a serial killer fighting the urge to kill. Basically, he really looked in character.

"Castle!" shouted Kate at him at some point. "You're scaring Gabriel. Calm down for fuck's sake!" She was holding their son, already equipped with his personalized neon green noise reduction ear muffs to protect his fragile eardrums. He clutched at her shirt and cried softly, hiding from his father. That kid had developed a keen sense of empathy, he sensed when someone didn't feel right. He easily detected stress and acted out accordingly. He tried to go away from it.

"Not easy Kate. You're not the one going back on stage after years of absence with an album out that has divided the fans."

"Well, the sold out Garden here should tell you that your fans still love you. So man up, wear that mask and thrash the hell out of them."

"We play death metal Kate," he replied, strapping the mask on his face. Damn, he looked really creepy with that mask on, no wonder Gabriel didn't like it much.

"That's slowly mutating to thrash. Come on." She walked closer and lifted the soft latex that covered his mouth, just enough to kiss him. "Go, your fans are waiting for you and the others are ready. You're the opening act."

He nodded. "I know. But you're my most important fan, you know that?"

"I know. You made it clear multiple times. Now go. And remember, I'm right beside you. We're not moving, we are here. Anytime you need it, look at us. Everything will be fine."

Castle signalled he was ready to the techs, the lights on stage went down. One last look at Kate and Gabriel and walked on stage, reaching his microphone. A bright white spotlight lit him and the pre-recorded base of the song started. He took a deep breath, finally ready.

He had dealt with his demons. He had rebuilt his life from nearly scratch. He had a family that he loved and loved him back. This was just one step ahead on the road of recovery. He started singing.

"_With my face against the floor..._"

_I'm in no shape to be alone, contrary to the shit that you might hear  
>So walk with me, walk with me [...]<br>Just like we should have done right from the start  
>So walk with me, walk with me<br>Don't let this fucking world tear you apart_

_Slipknot - XIX  
>From the album ".5 - The Grey Chapter" 2014<em>

**-O-O-O-O-**

* * *

><p><em>Word count: 3493 Total Count: 44062<em>

_Time for some explanation. This story is deeply rooted in reality. I took Corey Taylor, frontman of Slipknot and Stone Sour, and glued Nathan Fillion's image and height on him. Taylor is a musician and a writer, he writes both novels and comics, but he's also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Hence this side of Castle we've never seen in the show. The drinking, the abuse… it was real. In 2004 his now ex wife threatened to take away his child from him if he didn't do something for his addiction. Taylor attempted suicide once, overdosed pretty often in his youth. He also grew without a father, as his father left his mother while she was still pregnant with him. He's now clean, for what us fans know, and sober. I met him a couple of years ago for an interview (if you want the link, just ask, it's on YouTube) and he's a nice person, quiet and amicable, really really fun to be around. That's why the story took an angsty turn, when Damian died. That event too is rooted in reality. It's based on Paul Gray's death by drug overdose in 2010. He was Slipknot's bassist and one of the few founding members remaining in the band. The quote in the end of this chapter comes from their latest album, released last year, their first record after Gray's death. Most of the songs included in the album deal with the band's grief over their mate's death. _

_For Beckett, I took another band as an example. Halestorm, hard rock/heavy metal band from Philadelphia, though Beckett retains much more of her personality and her past, if we exclude the reason she became a cop. Lzzy Hale, the frontwoman and person I based Beckett on (though she's not married to Corey Taylor) is a committed musician (and one of the hottest chicks in the world, I tell you) and never considered a career in the police force. But her friendship with the person I based Marie in is real. She's a friend of Maria Brink, from In This Moment. Maria was really abused by her father as a child and some of the songs she wrote deal with that aspect of her life. Her lyrics are often harsh, songs like Whore or Black Widow can be tough. Others, like From The Ashes, are a bit softer, both musically and lyrically.  
>Back to Halestorm, the song Castle and Beckett compose is real, though it wasn't performed by Corey Taylor (I wish) is really called Private Parts and is performed by Halestorm and feats James Michael, vocalist of Sixx A.M. (Nikki Sixx side project outside Motley Crue) and it's a bonus track for Halestorm's second album, "A Strange Case Of…"<em>

_Maybe I was too subtle with it, but this story also has a lot in common with Rock Of Age. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I highly suggest you to go and watch the movie. It's a musical with Tom Cruise, Catherine Zeta Jones, Russel Brand, Mary J. Blige and many more. It feats some awesome renditions of hard rock/new wave of British heavy metal/glam metal and rock songs from the 80s. One of the many reasons Beckett gets pregnant in this story is because Stacee Jaxx, one of the characters of the musical, redeems himself from his life made of alcohol and drugs when he falls in love and becomes a father. Clichè, I know, but a friend once told me that there are only a finite number of story an author can write before crossing the border of gibberish nonsense. _

_Oh and yes, Taylor Momsen has a hard rock band. The Pretty Reckless. They are awesome. _

_So, it's done. I's over and I'm proud I wrote over 40k words in less than a month. Thanks for the support and the kind (or not so kind sometimes) words in your reviews. I hope you enjoyed this plunge in a world that's usually seen as a bunch of debauched drunk guys with black tshirts, spikes all over their clothing and anything in between, while in reality it's a deep world of fun and merry moments spent together. After six editions of Metal Camp/Metaldays (in Slovenia) I know that. Go on the official Metaldays Facebook page and take a look at their photogalleries, with the photos of the crowd, the beach, the concert area. You'll find some precious pearls. _

_Oh and of course, many thanks to Alex, beta reader extraordinaire that betaed stuff at two AM. Without you, I would have never made it. And thanks to Alice, precious friend and last minute graphic designer. Never thought this hellhole of a town could house a friend like you. Thanks Tumblr for allowing us to discover we lived 200 yards away from each other. You can find her at alyssinmymind . tumblr . com._

_And thanks to my boyfriend that put up with me when I had to write. He practically consumed my PS3 while I wrote. And also thank you Marco for all the times you answered my questions about both Slipknot and Halestorm. He's a walking encyclopedia of heavy metal. Best husband-to-be ever. _


End file.
